Rating: 
Summary: A good resource
Review: "Java Swing" is an in-depth look at the features and components of Java's popular Swing API. The much-anticipated second edition of O'Reilly's classic brings the book up-to-date with the changes made in SDKs 1.3 and 1.4. Each Swing component is covered in detail, providing information on constructors, methods, and properties. There is of course a plethora of example code clearly demonstrating how to use the various components and features.While "Java Swing" is quite a hefty book, it does not cover the Java event model introduced in JDK 1.1, the AWT layout managers, or relevant AWT components such as Component that are subclassed by Swing components. Instead references are given to pdf files containing chapters of O'Reilly's out-of-print AWT book. While this may have been an acceptable omission for the first edition in 1998, where it might be assumed that developers had some experience with AWT, I do not feel this is a valid assumption today. If you can look past the book's omissions, or if you have a companion reference covering those features, "Java Swing" has much to offer and will serve as a treasured reference. If you are unfamiliar with AWT and looking to learn how to develop user interfaces in Java, you may wish to look elsewhere first.
Rating: 
Summary: The most informative reference available
Review:
Pavel Vorobiev and I are currently finishing up an 'advanced' Swing book consisting mainly of examples ("Swing", Manning publications). We have referenced the Swing source code nonstop. Apart from this, we feel that Java Swing is the best Swing reference money can buy. This book is not an API docs dump. It is a high quality reference book for GUI developers who are prepared to do their job professionaly, not blindly. If you are looking for a hand-holding tutorial this book is not for you (for this I would suggest Up to Speed With Swing). Java Swing is very well organized and full of original explanation. I encourage potential readers to disregard other comments claiming that this book is API repetitive or doesn't explain enough. No book can cover every possible situation that can arise in the creation of a GUI, and no book will fully explain all of the inner workings of each Swing component and UI delegate. Swing is a very complex and extensive library with some very interesting and powerful mechanisms working behind the scenes. Without a doubt, Java Swing is the most informative and rich reference available. I recommend it highly. Matthew Robinson
"Swing", Manning publications
Swing "Tips and Tricks", The Swing Connection
Rating:
Summary: Advanced SWING
Review: I really enjoyed this book. The authors really cover all the areas of SWING - JAVA 1.4. If you are new to JAVA, you might to buy a JAVA primer. This book on SWING has a lot of code which is good for experienced developer. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn advanced features on SWING. I have a message for the experienced developer: the code of the book will challenge you - it challenged me!!! Michael
Rating:
Summary: Very useful and well written.
Review: The Swing classes eliminate Java's biggest weakness: its relatively primitive user interface
toolkit. Swing provides many new components and containers that allow you to build sophisticated
user interfaces, far beyond what was possible with AWT. The old components have been greatly
improved, and there are many new components, like trees, tables, and even text editors. It also
adds several completely new features to Java's user interface capabilities: drag-and-drop, undo,
and the ability to develop your own "look and feel," or the ability to choose between several
standard looks. Written for the experienced Java developer, Java Swing provides an in-depth guide to
getting the most out of Sun's Swing/JFC user interface classes. Mixing
real-world code examples and expert advice on advanced features, this book shows how to make use of this powerful
library effectively within your own projects. As a general Swing reference, this book is very good; where it excels is at covering the numerous
important aspects of Swing theory and application. I was initially disappointed by the lack
of coverage of layout managers, however the rest of the content has been extremely useful
in helping me understand the key aspects of Swing GUI development. Java Swing gives you in-depth coverage of everything you need to know to take full advantage of Swing,
providing detailed descriptions of every class and interface in the key Swing packages. It shows you how
to use all of the new components. Whether you're a serious Java Swing Developer or just trying to figure
out what Java can do you will find this book as an indispensable guide.
Rating:
Summary: Java Swing
Review: Java Swing is the definitive reference for the Graphical User Interface (GUI) Swing package that has been included in the standard distribution of the Java SDK since Java 1.2. The book is really more of a tomb, weighing in at 1200 pages, and yet none of it seems irrelevant or overly explained. If anything, one would have to complain that maybe there are details missing, but given the length of the book as is, maybe it's better that some of the details were left out. Publishers O'Reilly have obviously assembled a group of talented Java GUI designers to write this book, because the commentary is rife with real advice and coherent, practical explanations. The book does take some assumed knowledge for granted, such as basic programming skills, knowledge of Object-Oriented programming practices, and UML-style class and object relationship graphs, but I wouldn't say that this book excludes the beginner programmer in the least. Instead, it walks the fine line of being a useful book for both beginner and expert coders quite well, better than other O'Reilly publications that I've read in the past that I felt were overly explanatory. The book starts off with a little history on the Swing package, where it came from and what its relationship to the Abstract Windowing Toolkit (AWT) is, but then almost immediately launches into the format that it uses for the next 900 pages of the book, which is to devote an entire chapter to every major section of swing. Topics covered include: buttons, scrollbar-like components, combo-boxes, containers of every shape and size, dialogs, borders, menus, tables, trees, undo facilities, text (about 220 pages on the major text components alone,) and drag and drop. Each of these sections serves as a useful reference for when you're developing your own GUI applications. The explanations are generally more details and much deeper than those offered in the Javadoc HTML pages provided with the SDK distribution. I've personally used the book on a couple of projects that I've been working on at work, and found that the background given has been incredibly useful, not just for solving problems but for generating ideas for how things could be better. The topic separation is such that you can usually just read the chapter that deals with what you are currently doing, and not have to jump around the book looking for better explanations of the same idea. There is very little overlap in this book, which I consider to be a good thing in a reference book. The final four chapters deal with advanced topics, and a genuinely insightful and useful. Now for the minor complaints: This book is truly focused on Swing, but sometimes I felt that the focus was just a little too narrow. Mainly my issues come from the authors deciding that AWT is a separate topic from Swing. Thus, any discussions of GUI programming elements that fall under the canvas of AWT are ignored. This is unfortunate, since real-life GUI applications have no choice but to use AWT elements. What's even more unfortunate is that Swing, being built on top of AWT, relies heavily on its architecture. JComponent, the root class of 95% of Swing component, is itself derived from Container and Component, the root classes of AWT. Browsing the O'Reilly catalogue, I failed to notice a book devoted to AWT, though I think it used to exist but has since been discontinued. This leaves me wondering where a GUI programmer should go to get the details needed to do the job. The most obvious omission in my eyes - apart from a discussion of Component and Container - is the failure to properly outline the common LayoutManagers available in Swing. Layout management is a crucial task for GUI programmers, and yet the only mention of them are the new LayoutManagers introduced by Swing. These new managers, however, by no means replace the old AWT managers that are the bread and butter of GUI programming. My other minor complaint is that the book is cumbersome. This makes it a chore to use, though I fully admit that this is a very minor problem. However, I would have preferred that the publishers ship the book as a two-book set and charged a bit more for it. Negatives aside, this book is a must-have for Java Swing programmers. The book isn't perfect, but I haven't come across a better reference for the topic.
Rating: 
Summary: Not as good as advertized
Review: The book as a whole is pleasant to read and covers wide enough range of topic. One huge glaring omission is the GridBagLayout (only mentions in passing while cover other less pwerful layout managers). What's up with that? Don't hope to get much on the section on creating a custom editor kit. The book makes no mention about how to actually create alternative document structures. The on-line chapter is no help on this matter either. I wish the book will explain how ElementSpec class is used.
Rating:
Summary: A good resource
Review: "Java Swing" is an in-depth look at the features and components of Java's popular Swing API. The much-anticipated second edition of O'Reilly's classic brings the book up-to-date with the changes made in SDKs 1.3 and 1.4. Each Swing component is covered in detail, providing information on constructors, methods, and properties. There is of course a plethora of example code clearly demonstrating how to use the various components and features. While "Java Swing" is quite a hefty book, it does not cover the Java event model introduced in JDK 1.1, the AWT layout managers, or relevant AWT components such as Component that are subclassed by Swing components. Instead references are given to pdf files containing chapters of O'Reilly's out-of-print AWT book. While this may have been an acceptable omission for the first edition in 1998, where it might be assumed that developers had some experience with AWT, I do not feel this is a valid assumption today. If you can look past the book's omissions, or if you have a companion reference covering those features, "Java Swing" has much to offer and will serve as a treasured reference. If you are unfamiliar with AWT and looking to learn how to develop user interfaces in Java, you may wish to look elsewhere first.
Rating:
Summary: Great Java Swing Resource
Review: The Java Swing 2nd Edition O'Reilly book is a very good resource for learning and using Java Swing. The book covers the important and commonly used aspects of Swing without getting bogged down into the minute details you would find in the technical API specifications. The examples from the book are available on O'Reilly's website and can be downloaded from their site in one file or accessed individually. There are also brief errata available online for those last minute errors that didn't make it into the book. The book is clear about what material is covered so there should be no surprises when the latest language constructs aren't discussed. This book is not written for learning the Java language, but if you have a decent grasp of how Java works this book will not be over your head in most places. The book is focused entirely on Swing and not AWT or the 2D API of the JFC. The writing is easy to follow and the examples are clear to understand. For those who are converting from AWT to Swing there is a chapter that explains the differences and shows how to convert a few objects into Swing components. The book is aimed at learning Swing without any previous knowledge of AWT.
I highly recommend this book for any developer that wants a good resource and teaching aid for learning and developing in Swing.
Rating:
Summary: WITH FINE-TUNED IMPROVEMENTS OVER THE PREVIOUS EDITION
Review: This elaborated textbook showed a promising improvement over the previous edition. It is stuffed with the latest guides for creating GUIs. Readers would notice that this edition of "Java Swing" has included most of the newest elements of the software, while at the same time, dumping all the archaic aspects which are no longer popular.
Users of 'Mac OS X' would appreciate the expanded coverage that has been given to the Operating System. There are also, revised information on cross-platform compatibility: including new illustrated examples.
Still, as was the case with the previous edition, some of the examples provided in this edition need extra modification before they could be effectively applied.
Rating:
Summary: The Java Swing Bible
Review: There is NO better book on Swing than Java Swing. Start here and end here, it is the best book for any serious Swing developer. I only wish they would make a 2nd edition and cover all the new topics that have come out in the new Swing release.
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