AWT vs. Swing

ION Java User's Guide: Overview of the ION Java Classes

AWT vs. Swing

Each ION Java component is shipped in two forms, one built on AWT classes, the other on Swing classes. This section discusses the difference between AWT and Swing, the advantages and disadvantages of each, and how to distinguish between the ION AWT classes and the ION Swing classes.

AWT and Swing are both part of a group of Java class libraries called the Java Foundation Classes (JFC). The Abstract Windowing Toolkit (AWT) is the original GUI toolkit shipped with the Java Development Kit (JDK). The AWT provides a basic set of graphical interface components similar to those available with HTML forms. Swing is the latest GUI toolkit, and provides a richer set of interface components than the AWT. In addition, Swing components offer the following advantages over AWT components:

The behavior and appearance of Swing components is consistent across platforms, whereas AWT components will differ from platform to platform

Swing components can be given their own "look and feel"

Swing uses a more efficient event model than AWT; therefore, Swing components can run more quickly than their AWT counterparts

On the other hand, Swing components can take longer to load than AWT components.

ION Applications should use either all AWT-based components, or all Swing-based components. Mixing AWT and Swing components in the same application can cause problems with the stacking order of your components.

The ION Swing components can be identified by a "J." For example, the Swing version of the IONPlot class is called IONJPlot.

Note
If you use Swing components, you need to define the certain attributes in your HTML file. This is due to certain browsers not supporting Swing components. For example:

	CODE=com.ITT.ion.IONJPlotApplet.class
	CODEBASE="../classes"
	ARCHIVE="ion_64.jar, swingall.jar"

If you are not running your Java application through a browser, you need to set CLASSPATH to include the swingall.jar file.

The swingall.jar file is available from http://java.sun.com.

IDL Online Help (March 06, 2007)