GUI
-Rupali Shinde
GUI stands for Graphical User Interface. We interact with the screen in two
ways one is console-based and the second one is a Graphical user interface. In
console based we interact with help of text command eg. command prompt
whereas in GUI we interact with the help of graphical components which is also
known as visual indicators eg. Calculator.
For Graphical User Interface there are two types of Application Programming
Interface (API’s) and they are AWT (Abstract Windowing Toolkit) and Swing.
AWT:
Abstract Windowing Toolkit consists of twelve packages. Out of twelve
packages, only two packages [Link] and [Link] are commonly used.
[Link] : The [Link] package contains the core AWT, graphic classes.
● GUI component classes consist of Button, Textfield, and Label.
● GUI container classes consist of Frame, Panel, Dialog, and ScrollPane.
● Layout managers consist of FlowLayout, BorderLayout, and Grid Layout.
● Custom graphics classes consist of Graphics, Color, and Font.
[Link]: The [Link] package supports event handling.
● Event classes consist of ActionEvent, MouseEvent, KeyEvent, and
WindowEvent.
● Event Listener Interface consists of ActionListener, MouseListener,
KeyListener, and WindowListener.
What is a Container?
Each GUI program has a top-level container. Frame, Dialog, and applet in Java
are the commonly used top-level containers in AWT.
1. Frame: A Frame is the top-level container of an AWT GUI program. A-
frame consists of a title bar (containing an icon, a title and the minimize
and the maximize, Close buttons), an optional menu bar, and the content
display area.
2. Panel: A panel is a rectangular area used to group related GUI
components. The panel is a sub-container. The panel is used to make
sections in the container.
Applet in Java:
An applet in java is a simple java program. Applet runs also in a web browser.
Like frame applets are container classes. An applet also extends the
[Link] class. Applets are thus to be embedded within an HTML
page. A JVM is necessary to view an applet.
In an applet, we can not make the main( ) function even if it is written in java. It
is called a stand-alone application. Compile same as java file.
We can not run as java for that we have two options:
● Browsers run HTML embed.
● applet viewer.
Applet’s Life Cycle:
● JVM creates an instance of the applet class and invokes various methods
during the applet’s lifetime.
● When we open any HTML file containing an applet class in the browser
called JVM and JVM creates an object of our applet class which is a child
class of Applet by default that object has five functions from the parent
class which is required for the life cycle.
● Methods in the applet class give you the framework on which you can
build any applet application.
Following are the default methods that JVM calls automatically.
1. init(): run at the start and it is used for initializing purposes. It runs only
once.
2. start():call automatically once the init() function is ended. It may also
called one or many times.
3. stop(): If we navigate to another Webpage then it stops the start()
function. it may be called one or many times.
4. destroy(): It ends the applet lifestyle if we close the Webpage. It runs only
once.
5. paint(): It is not a life cycle part but it is important and called after start().
Components in applet in java:
An applet is a container and components are nothing but the elements present in
the applets and they are as follows: Button, TextField, Label, Checkbox, Choice
and List, etc. We place components on the applet container so that users can
interact with the applet in java. We get all these components from the [Link]
package. Let’s take a step by step approach to creating components in an applet
through the following example: Where we can add two numbers.
1. The basic structure of an applet:
We run our applet in java through applet viewer. Following a few lines of code
is the basic skeleton of an applet in java.
2. Creating component reference variables:
In java create reference variables before creating an object. L1 and l2 are the
reference variables of the Label and similarly t1and t2 for Textfeild and b1 for a
button.
3. Initialize components:
As we know when the browser makes an object of the applet then it
automatically calls the init() function. so, We override the init() method and
initialize components in the init() method.
4. Adding components to the applet:
● In the step, we add all components that are required.
● If the setting layout is already set(by default) then the sequence of adding
the components is arranged according to the set layout.
● If we set the setting layout to null then we have to design the setting
layout then components are arranged according to our setting layout.
5. Setting layout:
● There are many setting layouts according to our need if that type of
setting is available then pass that setting layout object.
● We can also do the layout with the help of setLayout() function.
[Link](left,top,width,height);
b1 from left side, top side, width of b1 and height of b1 in pixels.
Advantages:
● It also increases the interactivity of users.
● Easy to use.
Disadvantages:
● All browsers thus do not support applets.
● Javascript is more used in browsers.
Conclusion:
Applet In Java provides Graphical User Interface in the web browser. Also with
the help of applet, we can achieve functionality on the web so that our website
becomes dynamic and user friendly. But applet does not support all the
browsers that we use whereas javascript supports all browsers therefore
javascript is used more than Applet In Java in the web browser.