Chapter 13: Creating windows and applets

Java comes with the Abstract Window Toolkit (AWT), which is a set of classes that
handle windowing in a portable fashion; these windowing programs can either be
applets or stand-alone applications. This chapter is an introduction to the AWT and
the creation of World Wide Web applets. We’ll also look at pros and cons of the AWT
and the GUI improvements introduced in Java 1.1. The important “Java Beans”
technology is introduced. This is fundamental for the creation of Rapid-Application
Development (RAD) program-building tools. Finally, the new Java 1.2 “Swing”
library is introduced – this provides a dramatic improvement in UI components for
Java.