Integrative programming

The Java programming language class library provides a user interface toolkit called the Abstract Windowing Toolkit, or the AWT. The AWT is both powerful and flexible. Newcomers, however, often find that its power is veiled. The class and method descriptions found in the distributed documentation provide little guidance for the new programmer. Furthermore, the available examples often leave many important questions unanswered. Of course, newcomers should expect some difficulty. Effective graphical user interfaces are inherently challenging to design and implement, and the sometimes complicated interactions between classes in the AWT only make this task more complex. However, with proper guidance, the creation of a graphical user interface using the AWT is not only possible, but relatively straightforward.

The AWT provides nine basic non-container component classes from which a user interface may be constructed. (Of course, new component classes may be derived from any of these or from class Component itself.) These nine classes are class Button, Canvas, Checkbox, Choice, Label, List, Scrollbar, TextArea, and TextField. Figure 4 depicts an instance of each class.