swing

Swing is a programming interface( API) that enables the programming of platform-independent GUIs with Java. It is part of the Java Foundation Classes( JFC) and thus belongs to the Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition( J2SE).

The AWT API, which also belongs to the Java Foundation Classes (JFC), is the indispensable basis for Swing. The Abstract Windowing Toolkit (AWT) uses the libraries of the respective target operating system to draw window frames and handle necessary tasks such as event handling. Swing, for its part, draws the actual GUI components in the empty frames and relies on event handling to work.

Swing follows the MVCdesign pattern relatively strictly in its architecture, which makes full use of the strengths of object-oriented programming. At the same time, it is also relatively complex and requires a relatively large amount of programming in many "lightweight" interfaces. Therefore, there are many developers who use for GUI development other programming platforms such as on . NET or other programming languages such as Delphi with the libraries VCL (Visual Components Library) and CLX (Component Library for Cross Platform Development) or C++ with the library Qt. For Java, the alternative GUI library Standard Widget Toolkit( SWT) has also become established.