JDK1.1 - AWT Enhancements

The AWT in JDK1.1 is targeted at providing major quality improvements while introducing the beginnings of a richer infrastructure for larger-scale GUI development. Although we are introducing enhancements and changes to the overall API, we will maintain backward compatibility with the 1.0 API so that existing applets will continue to run.

A number of the AWT changes and enhancements are aimed at the needs of tool developers. Good software tools are fundamental to the usability and success of Java technology. Additionally, the AWT in 1.1 will begin to lay the groundwork to support the upcoming JavaBeans architecture.

The 1.1 AWT contains a wide range of improvements, including a complete rewrite of the Win32 implementation. This document, however, focuses on API changes:

Note that these APIs may be modified for the final release of the JDK1.1 as a result of more complete testing and feedback from real-world usage by Java developers. We will update these documents periodically to reflect such changes (see Recent Updates). To see our plans for the future, go to AWT: The Next Generation.

We welcome your feedback!

Recent Updates

The following modifications were made to the documents in response to the feedback we've received so far:

October 25, 1996

Delegation Event Model
1. Re-worked the section on "Handling Events in Extended Components" in order to provide more flexibility in how to override methods to handle events in subclasses.
2. Added a system event queue object in order to allow central access/view of all incoming events
3. Simplified the AdjustmentListener and ItemListener interfaces to contain only a single method
4. Removed all 3 semantic Adapter classes, since each of the semantic listeners now only has a single method

November 21, 1996

Desktop Colors
1. Moved desktop colors into new SystemColor class (since they are a special type of color).
Graphics and Images: First release of these specifications.

December 11, 1996

Next Generation: Added link to document that describes future plans.

Many people contributed to the ideas and designs in these documents. In particular we'd like to recognize the following people (in alphabetical order): Tom Ball, Larry Cable, Amy Fowler, Jim Graham, Graham Hamilton, Herb Jellinek, Jonni Kanerva, Tim Prinzing, Blake Sullivan, Carl Quinn, Arthur Van Hoff.

Last updated December 4, 1996