Justin Hill

Front-end architecture and the art of developing GUIs that are functional and intuitive have been a challenge in this industry for quite some time. The advent of Java has made things a little easier; Java's extensive Swing package has assisted in the rapid creation of GUIs for application development. While the package provides a vast array of robust graphical widgets, there comes a point when a developer will stretch the limits of the component by attempting to provide functionality that is either not supported or nonexistent. JFileChooser is an example of one such component. The purpose of this article is to provide the reader with the knowledge and understanding to extend JFileChooser's functionality in order to display information from a generic directory service. JFileChooser and FileSystemView The default implementation of JFileChooser provides the user with a ... (more)

Favorite ComboBox

Swing is a library of graphical components used by Java front-end developers to create robust and functional graphical-user interfaces. Although there are many exciting topics in Swing, one of its most salient features is its ability to be customized. One of the more powerful and customizable widgets in the Swing library is JComboBox. JComboBox, a combination of a text field and a list, allows the user to select an item from a drop-down list that appears at the user's request. FavoritesComboBox, our extension to JComboBox, is a practical and functional component similar to the F... (more)

Enterprise JavaBeans: Architecture for the New Decade

Enterprise JavaBeans are being promoted as the component architecture for the new decade. The word Enterprise in the name would imply that EJBs are to the server environments what JavaBeans are to client computing. Both are component models, both are for Java, both try to deliver on the promise "write once, run anywhere." Beyond that, however, there is little commonality between them. EJB is not actually a software product but rather a specification of a server-side component architecture, to be implemented by vendors of server software. The specification combines object distribu... (more)