Rating: 
Summary: An Excellent choice for Swing developers.
Review: Topley has done an excellent job with this book. The examples are clear and very useful and can easily be applied to real applications. For once the advertising blurb is truthful ! I can thoroughly recommend this book to both Swing newbies and those who have been using it for a while. I look forward to her Advanced Swing book.
Rating: 
Summary: lacked information on the needed basics of java
Review: I am a 3rd-year computer science major, so I have a lot of experience in programming, however if this is your first Java book I don't recommend it. I get frustrated using it as a new Java programmer. The book and CD-ROM don't cover basic Java features that I find I always use. The book mostly goes over examples and explains how they work. And none of the programs in the book have comments next to them that explain what exactly the lines of code do. However, the good aspects are that 1.)it is easy to read and 2.) it explains the new Swing and JDK 1.2 features very nicely.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent -- the most useful Java book I have ever purchased
Review: This tells you pretty much all you need to know about Swing. I was impressed with the thoroughness and clarity of the book. If you're frustrated with the lack of JFC documentation out there, this book will not disappoint!
Rating:
Summary: Perfectly suited to the working programmer...
Review: Very well done...just enough background to provide a good comfort level, good examples...I have perhaps a dozen Java books and this one has been more useful than all of the others combined...
Rating:
Summary: Well done (perhaps better than Java in a Nutshell)
Review: Der Autor vermittelt einem Swing auf eine ausführliche übersichtliche Art. Fragen die einem beim Lesen kommen bleiben so nicht stehen sondern werden fast immer in den nächsten Sätzen erklärt. Schön sind auch die vielen Programmbeispiele mit den zugehörigen Screen Shots.
Rating:
Summary: Very Helpful and Useful
Review: I have been using this book to write a Swing application for a month now and I think it is very good. I especially value how easily I can find an example and explanation of a feature I want to use. The web site updates the example code to the latest release of Swing. Very highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: A "Must" for Java programmers. Five stars and more.
Review: Anyone familiar with the Petzold book Programming Windows will know what I mean when I say that this is the "Petzold" of Java Swing. Topley gives thorough, deep and authoritative coverage of the Swing APIs in a very readable manner. Considering the ever-changing nature of Swing until the final release of JDK1.2, Topley did an incredible job of pulling it all together and explaining it in a way that makes it easy to understand. This is the perfect supplement to the API documentation.Not only has Topley created the essential Swing reference work, he continues to bring the code up-to-date on his website to reflect the package name changes that have recently been made. This kind of effort deserves 6 stars instead of the five I gave it. I can't wait for volume 2!!
Rating: 
Summary: A great background and jump-start to swing beta
Review: A note of appreciation to the author of this book. I know he and his family must have made great personal sacrifices to create this book so soon, about a new, fast-changing and inadequately-documented topic. The book does not appear "rushed", even though there clearly existed time pressure. This reader congratulates him on the result of his effort. I also appreciate his good updates posted on his website. That demonstrates commitment, continuing interest and pride on his part about his book. In response to two criticisms of this book I read at the O'Reilly website. One was that this book was "frustrating" because it focuses on a "paradigm" instead of day-to-day code that a real programmer needs. I'm not so sure... I think that a real progammer needs to understand the design and framework of a software package to program it effectively, and this book addresses that need for Java swing (plus the book DOES provide some fine code samples). The book fills the void out there about the use and choice of layout managers (both awt and swing). Someone at the O'Reilly site criticized this book for being dry and not witty like some others. Well, wit is okay, but I prefer to have substance in my computer books (if I want wit I'll watch Seinfeld reruns...). However, I think the book really needs some more coverage of jtree/jtable and custom rendering/editing. May I suggest that be an objective of the next edition? Meanwhile, Core JFC is a great jump-start to beginning with swing beta (but you'll undoubtedly still need the online ). IMHO, at a strong 4 stars, Core JFC delivers! Thanks, Mr Topley.
Rating:
Summary: Good overview of many JFC components
Review: Overall I like this book because it shows quite a lot about many JFC components. I've also found that a trick I read about for one component can be applied to another JFC component.
I would be happier if some of the examples were larger. I realize this is hard to accomplish in a book, but I'm still looking for something with good details about JTree and the tree model.
The book doesn't cover Drag and Drop, Accessibility, or internationalization issues.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Swing coverage, with a few rough spots
Review: Overall, I found this book to be a worthy addition to the CORE series, and keep it close at hand whenever coding with Swing components. As other reviews have mentioned, this is more a Swing book than a general JFC book. With that in mind, I have one complaint about the book. The coverage of custom rendering & editing of Tree & Table cells just seems too lite. I consider this to be one of the most involved topics in Swing, due to the large amount of interplay between the numerous classes used to implement these components. While tree & table rendering/editing are closely related, I did find my self jumping between the two chapters a bit two much. In addition, his example code is not trivial, but seems to gloss around some important aspects of the topic. As I am work on a JTable-based application with "Core JFC" as a reference, I still find myself spending too much time diving through the swing sources. While I'm sure the next edition will be even better, I would not discourage anyone who wants to learn swing from getting this version now.
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