Preface

Introducing JClass Elements  Assumptions  Typographical Conventions in this Manual

Overview of the Manual  API Reference  Licensing  Related Documents  About Quest

Contacting Quest Software  Customer Support  Product Feedback and Announcements

Introducing JClass Elements

The Swing components are the most significant part of the Java Foundation Classes (JFC). Swing components cover basic needs, but some commonly useful items are missing. For instance, a Color Chooser component is included, but a Font Chooser is not.

JClass Elements is a broad collection of GUI components and utility classes designed to augment Swing's basic offerings. With JClass Elements, you have an extended set of off-the-shelf user interface components at your disposal. Moreover, because of their open design, it's easy to adapt them to your own custom needs.

Feature Overview

The classes of JClass Elements are distributed over three packages. com.klg.jclass.util contains a collection of utilities and com.klg.jclass.swing contains the more elaborate GUI components. There are additional classes in com.klg.jclass.util.swing. This package contains both utilities and some basic GUI components that add functionality to their Swing ancestors.

JClass Elements is a collection of utilities and GUI components which:

• Extends basic Swing functionality by rounding out the list of much-needed components.
• Simplifies your work by providing built-in functionality.
• Implements commonly-required utility functions.

JClass Elements may be used in conjunction with all of Quest Software's other JClass products, as well as with ordinary Swing components.

JClass Elements is compatible with JDK 1.4. If you are using JDK 1.4 and experience drawing problems, you may want to upgrade to the latest drivers for your video card from your video card vendor.

You can freely distribute Java applets and applications containing JClass components according to the terms of the License Agreement that appears at install time.

Assumptions

This manual assumes that you have some experience with the Java programming language. You should have a basic understanding of object-oriented programming and Java programming concepts such as classes, methods, and packages before proceeding with this manual. See Related Documents later in this section of the manual for additional sources of Java-related information.

Typographical Conventions in this Manual

Typewriter Font	Java language source code and examples of file contents. JClass Elements and Java classes, objects, methods, properties, constants, and events. HTML documents, tags, and attributes. Commands that you enter on the screen.
Italic Text	Pathnames, filenames, URLs, programs, and method parameters. New terms as they are introduced, and to emphasize important words. Figure and table titles. The names of other documents referenced in this manual, such as Java in a Nutshell.
Bold	Keyboard key names and menu references.

Overview of the Manual

Part I -Components and Layout Managers - contains information about JClass Elements's GUI components. Each chapter explains what the component is, and describes how to use it in your development project. There is also a chapter describing the behavior of the layout managers that JClass Elements provides. These functional yet simple-to-use layout managers can ease your layout tasks.

Chapter 1, Introducing JClass Elements provides an overview of the components in JClass Elements.

Chapter 2, CheckBox-List Component describes the use of a component that associates check boxes with list items.

Chapter 3, Circular and Linear Gauges describes the JCCircularGauge structure, a component for displaying and setting values on a circular dial or gauge.

Chapter 4, Date Chooser describes the use of a graphical date chooser component.

Chapter 5, JCPopupCalendar Component introduces a component that allows you to edit the date and time using a drop-down calendar.

Chapter 6, Exit Frame outlines this subclass of Swing's JFrame, which is used to detect and react to window-closing events.

Chapter 7, Font Choosers details the JCFontChooser class, which gives you an easy way of letting your end users change fonts.

Chapter 8, HTML/Help Panes covers the use of this subclass of Swing's JEditorPane, which provides added HTML, hyperlink, and cursor changing functionality.

Chapter 9, Sortable Table offers information about this index map sorting class.

Chapter 10, Multiple Document Frame outlines this multiple document interface component, which allows you to put multiple windows in the same pane.

Chapter 11, Multi-Select List covers the use of this dual-list component, which handles tasks like specifying file inclusion and exclusion by providing a GUI containing two list areas. Items can be moved from one list area to the other. The names in the selected list are marked for the action you designate, while those in the deselected list are excluded.

Chapter 12, Spin Boxes presents an overview of this incrementing and decrementing component, which is used with java.lang.Number type objects.

Chapter 13, Splash Screen shows you how to include a splash screen with your application.

Chapter 14, Tree/Table Components provides information about the table component, which presents data as a hierarchical/tree listing or a non-hierarchical grid listing.

Chapter 15, Wizard Creator covers the use of a component that manages pages with wizard-like behavior. Typically, these pages are dialogs that assist the end user in setting up custom configurations by organizing the setup procedure.

Chapter 16, Layout Managers covers the behavior and use of the JClass Elements layout managers.

Part II- Utilities - describes how to use the utility classes in JClass Elements. Each chapter explains what the class is and describes how to use it in your development project.

Chapter 17, Introduction to the Utility Classes describes JClass Elements's utility classes.

Chapter 18, Debugging Tools covers this tool that provides three different types of debug printout control.

Chapter 19, JCFileFilter provides a convenient way of passing Windows-style filename extensions to a Swing JFileChooser so that only files of the named types appear in the file chooser dialog.

Chapter 20, Icon Creator outlines how you can use String arrays to create icon images. This eliminates the need to supply separate image files for the icons in your class.

Chapter 21, Image Encoder describes how to use this class to provide a picture of your component.

Chapter 22, Listener List describes how to use this class for keeping track of event listeners.

Chapter 23, Progress Helper offers information about this index map sorting class.

Chapter 24, String Tokenizer outlines the capabilities of this class, which lets you specify a delimiter and split a String into tokens.

Chapter 25, Thread Safety Utilities describes the classes that help with thread safety.

Chapter 26, Tree Set outlines the features of this class, which allows you to represent a set's elements as a sort tree.

Chapter 27, Type Converters outlines how to use these classes to convert between data types.

Chapter 28, Word Wrap shows how to add word wrapping functionality to a String.

Part III - Reference Appendices - contains detailed technical reference information.

Appendix A, Bean Properties Reference, gives important property details of all JClass Elements's components.

Appendix B, Distributing Applets and Applications, describes how to package your application for distribution using JClass JarMaster.

Appendix C, Colors and Fonts, provides you with a useful table of Color values.

API Reference

The API reference documentation (Javadoc) is installed automatically when you install JClass Elements and is found in the JCLASS_HOME/docs/api/ directory.

Licensing

In order to use JClass Elements, you need a valid license. Complete details about licensing are outlined in the JClass DesktopViews Installation Guide, which is automatically installed when you install JClass Elements.

Related Documents

The following is a sample of useful references to Java and JavaBeans programming:

• "Java Platform Documentation" at http://java.sun.com/docs/index.html and the "Java Tutorial" at http://www.java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/index.html from Sun Microsystems
• For an introduction to creating enhanced user interfaces, see "Creating a GUI with JFC/Swing" at http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/uiswing/index.html
• Java in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition from O'Reilly & Associates Inc. See the O'Reilly Java Resource Center at http://java.oreilly.com.
• Resources for using JavaBeans are at http://java.sun.com/beans/resources.html

These documents are not required to develop applications using JClass Elements, but they can provide useful background information on various aspects of the Java programming language.

About Quest

Quest Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: QSFT) is a leading provider of application management solutions. Quest provides customers with Application Confidence^sm by delivering reliable software products to develop, deploy, manage and maintain enterprise applications without expensive downtime or business interruption. Targeting high availability, monitoring, database management and Microsoft infrastructure management, Quest products increase the performance and uptime of business-critical applications and enable IT professionals to achieve more with fewer resources. Headquartered in Irvine, Calif., Quest Software has offices around the globe and more than 18,000 global customers, including 75% of the Fortune 500. For more information on Quest Software, visit www.quest.com.

Contacting Quest Software

E-mail	sales@quest.com
Address	Quest Software, Inc. World Headquarters 8001 Irvine Center Drive Irvine, CA 92618 USA
Web site	www.quest.com
Phone	949.754.8000 (United States and Canada)

Please refer to our Web site for regional and international office information.

Customer Support

Quest Software's world-class support team is dedicated to ensuring successful product installation and use for all Quest Software solutions.

SupportLink	www.quest.com/support
E-mail	support@quest.com

You can use SupportLink to do the following:

• Create, update, or view support requests
• Search the knowledge base, a searchable collection of information including program samples and problem/resolution documents
• Access FAQs
• Download patches
• Access product documentation, API reference, and demos and examples

Please note that many of the initial questions you may have will concern basic installation or configuration issues. Consult this product's readme file and the JClass DesktopViews Installation Guide (available in HTML and PDF formats) for help with these types of problems.

To Contact JClass Support

Any request for support must include your JClass product serial number. Supplying the following information will help us serve you better:

• Your name, email address, telephone number, company name, and country
• The product name, version and serial number
• The JDK (and IDE, if applicable) that you are using
• The type and version of the operating system you are using
• Your development environment and its version
• A full description of the problem, including any error messages and the steps required to duplicate it

JClass Direct Technical Support
JClass Support Email	support@quest.com
Telephone	949-754-8000
Fax	949-754-8999
European Customers Contact Information	Telephone: +31 (0)20 510-6700 Fax: +31 (0)20 470-0326

      

Product Feedback and Announcements

We are interested in hearing about how you use JClass Elements, any problems you encounter, or any additional features you would find helpful. The majority of enhancements to JClass products are the result of customer requests.

Please send your comments to:
Quest Software
8001 Irvine Center Drive
Irvine, CA 92618

Telephone: 949-754-8000
Fax: 949-754-8999