:: References ::

Find here a list of references useful for Java layout.

Layout Systems

ExplicitLayout complements the FormLayout when it comes to non-rectangular layouts and other complex non-form-oriented designs. It is a powerful general purpose layout manager that provides many features to specify the location and size of a component.

ExplicitLayout offers other useful features: styles, external UI specification and layout reuse. ExplicitLayout is licensed under the GNU LGPL and ships with a user guide and well chosen examples.

The Explicit Table Builder adds a few things that the pure ExplicitLayout is missing such as builders, layout styles, support for Dialog Units (dlu), and a nice debug panel.

The Matisse visual builder (integrated with Netbeans) makes it easy for many people to get layouts done quickly. It seems that Matisse has been designed for visual building, but the underlying GroupLayout can be used without Matisse.

Although the FormLayout is intended to replace the GridBagLayout, the latter is still a resonable choice, if you cannot add a third party layout manager like the FormLayout to your project. The Packer simplifies the use of GridBagLayout.

SwtForms is an SWT port of the JGoodies FormLayout and some Forms builder done by Florian Fankhauser.

JGoodies Forms Cheat Sheet

Robert Blixt provides a Forms cheat sheet that summarizes information about Forms' sizes, units, constraints, and the string encoding syntax.

Articles

Microsoft's Design Specifications and Guidelines - Visual Design describe how to layout on the Microsoft platform. Since the dimensions are specified in a non-pixel size dlu it is quite useful for multiplatform screen design.

The Apple Human Interface Guidelines provide a lot of tips & tricks for good design.

I provide articles and presentations about Swing, apperance, and layout.

Books

A recommended reading is Designing Visual Interfaces by Kevin Mullet & Darrel Sano. If you read 100 pages of this book, you will learn the most valuable basics of user interface design, and more generally, design. It is useful for the daily work of every GUI developer.

If you either need an introduction or reference about do's and don'ts in GUI design, read Jeff Johnson's GUI Bloopers. If you are busy and can't find the time to read 500 pages, just look at the book's contents and check whether you have an idea what all the topics are about. In this case, I guess, a medium skilled GUI designer will read about 50 pages.

There are several tutorials and books that can help you get started with the Swing widget toolkit, widgets, and basic configuration. The Swing book by Robinson and Vorobiev is one of the better books.