Date: Sun, 18 Apr 2004 21:36:30 -0400 From: Dan Jacobs Subject: WebTech Tuesday 4/20 7pm - Component Layout in Swing Hi everyone. This month's WebTech meeting will be on Tuesday, April 20, 7 to 9 pm, at the IBM SPC in Waltham. Details and directions are on the website at http://www.acm.org/chapters/webtech. This month's presentation will be on "Component Layout in Swing", presented by Dan Jacobs of ModelObjects Group (yes, that's me). Everyone is invited to join us for dinner before the meeting at the Green Papaya restaurant on Winter Street, from 5:30 to 6:45, and for snacks and conversation in the Double Tree lounge after the meeting. Please let me know if you plan to come for dinner so we can get a good table. I hope to see you there! -- Dan ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Abstract: Component Layout in Swing Portable graphic user interfaces need to look good and behave properly on different platforms - without platform-specific logic. The goal of "write once, run everywhere," even with different fonts, screen sizes, screen resolutions, etc., can be achieved by approaching the right problems the right way. Java layout managers are special-purpose constraint solvers that provide a portable approach to component layout. The appropriate use of layout managers is an essential part of building portable user interfaces with AWT and Swing. This presentation will cover: * Layout manager concepts * Guidelines for using layout managers effectively * Design principles for using and building layout managers * Advanced topics, including multi-level layered layout There will be plenty of code examples, a couple of live demos, and open discussion on ways to solve different kinds of problems. About the speaker: Dan Jacobs is the Founder of ModelObjects Group, an independent consulting group started in 1995, specializing in all aspects of object-oriented software engineering in Java. With ModelObjects Group, Dan has been developing AWT and Swing (and many other) applications for clients in the Boston area since 1995, and has developed a number of custom layout managers, some of which are available as open source. Dan has an M.S. degree in software engineering, and over 20 years experience designing and building object-oriented languages, systems, and applications. Dan is also the inventor of JPlates, and the Founder and President of JPlates Inc. JPlates extends Java with JPlates template methods, which provide advanced text-template processing in object-oriented methods that are written with JPlates template syntax. And for fun, Dan has served as chairman of the Boston Area WebTech chapter of the ACM since 1997.