Chet Haase's Blog

Filthy Rich Clients: A Subtle Teaser

Romain Guy and I are nearing the end of a book on Swing, Java 2D, animation, and how to write better, and cooler, Swing applications. It's called Filthy Rich Clients.  I know we haven't mentioned it before, except for here, and here, and here, and here, and then here. And there's always here, and here, and then here. We've obviously been pretty quiet about it.

Now the book is actually nearing completion; we have just a tad more writing to go (right, Romain?), some more editing, then some more editing, and reviews, and then editing, and some more reviews, and then we'll probably want to edit it some more. And theoretically, all of this gets done in time to publish for JavaOne 2007 (second week of May).

So I thought I'd take a quick break from editing Chapter 12 (a fun chapter about a really cool utility ... which I have to completely rewrite in the next 2 days) and post the outline, now that we're fairly sure what it'll be:

Part I: Graphics and GUI Fundametals

1. Desktop Java Graphics APIs: Swing, Java 2D, and AWT
2. Swing Rendering Fundamentals
3. Graphics Fundamentals
4. Images
5. Advanced Graphics Rendering
6. Advanced Swing Rendering
7. Performance

Part II: Animation

8. Animation Fundamentals
9. Smooth Moves
10. Timing Framework: Fundamentals
11. Timing Framework: Advanced

Part III: Effects

12. Animated Transitions
13. Static Effects
14. Dynamic Effects
15. Wrap-Up

At least, that's our take on it before the reviewers rip it apart.

It should be a fun, and hopefully quite useful, book.  The first section, Part I, is fairly huge and is intended to be educational to a broad audience about how Swing and Java 2D do what they do and how you can take advantage of various features for richer applications. So while the whole book is oriented toward making-Swing-apps-cooler, there is a lot of material in there that is also intended to simply help Swing programmers understand Swing better. Lots of code. Lots of screenshots. Occasional math equations just to act a little crazy.

Now, back to my dark little editing corner....

Comments

• [Insert best possible message to put me on the review team]

  Posted by: mikaelgrev on January 25, 2007 at 12:59 AM

• The last swing book I bought was 'swing hacks' (oreilly), it was quite disappointing. I'm sure this one will be better!

  Posted by: francisdb on January 25, 2007 at 03:20 AM

• Let me be the first to offer proof reading services. Two reasons why I'm suitable

  1) I can read
  2) See above

  Posted by: bugfaceuk on January 25, 2007 at 03:48 AM

• Nice not-so-subtle hint to tell me to finish the last chapters :)

  Posted by: gfx on January 25, 2007 at 05:08 AM

• I thought swing hacks was pretty decent and there was definitely some useful tips in there.

  Can't wait til this one comes out though!

  Posted by: sjlum on January 25, 2007 at 05:50 AM

• Does this imply that the timing framework API is stabilized? I've had a peek at it a few times, it appears to be in continuously evolving...

  - Chris

  Posted by: chris_e_brown on January 25, 2007 at 07:26 AM

• chris:
  It's been settling down (and getting much better) recently. The intention is to declare a "1.0" version that will be used for the book's demos. In the meantime, check out .54, it's pretty solid.

  
  Everyone else: Thanks for the offer of reviewers; we've actually got a lot of folks already suffering under the weight of the manuscript. You'll just have to wait until it hits the shelves...

  Posted by: chet on January 25, 2007 at 08:02 AM

• You'll just have to wait until it hits the shelves...

  Or I can give you guys Chet's address so you can bang on his door until he gives you a copy of the manuscript.

  Posted by: gfx on January 25, 2007 at 08:04 AM

• [Insert a not so subtle threat including the address I got from Romain]

  Posted by: mikaelgrev on January 25, 2007 at 08:49 AM

• I think you should bring the latest version of the manuscript to the Desktop Matters conference...and park in the darkest part of the parking lot...and if it happens to disappear - hey, wasn't me.

  Dean "Give me what I want and nobody gets hurt" Iverson

  :-)
  

  Posted by: diverson on January 25, 2007 at 11:01 AM

• 
  I miss a chapter about data binding. I consider this being the most important topic in any useful desktop app.

  I think you should be thoughtful about the weight of animation in the book. It seems you are trying to "sell your framework" rather than writing a general book about "filthy rich" desktop apps.

  Posted by: christian_schlichtherle on January 25, 2007 at 04:19 PM

• christian_schlichtherle: Filthy Rich Clients are not about binding data :)

  Posted by: gfx on January 25, 2007 at 04:34 PM

• Can I get a copy for my team before JavaOne so we can use it to spice up our demo(s)?! :-)
  ...
  You blog is great man, keep it up, and all my best on your book effort. I'm sure it will do and be excellent.

  Posted by: shawnkendall on January 25, 2007 at 06:49 PM

• Nice work guys !!! Will this book be available through internet, (amazon) ? I'm not from USA and I'm very interested on it !!!

  Thank you Chet and Romain !!!

  Posted by: aleixmr on January 25, 2007 at 11:48 PM

• Who will publish it, and will it be available internationally?

  Posted by: masterdirk on January 26, 2007 at 03:02 AM

• Oh I am *dying* for chapter 6... I am doing a killer swing app, and I would big bucks to get a copy of that prior to May... I'd be happy to proof read... if any interest it is aron-smith on hotmails email system.

  Posted by: aronsmith on January 26, 2007 at 03:50 AM

• It will be published by Prentice Hall/Sun Press and should be available internationally through websites like Amazon.

  Posted by: gfx on January 26, 2007 at 04:38 AM

• christian_schlichtherle:

  The intent of the book is to motivate why developers should add effects to your applications, both animated and non-animated, and techniques for doing this in Swing. We describe lots of mechanisms for doing this in the core JDK classes, particularly for the non-animated effects. We also go into detail in using the core Timer classes in the JDK. But to have more flexibility (and way less code) for animated effects, we happen to use the Timing Framework. The techniques we use are not specific to that approach, but they use the Timing Framework because it makes the effects much easier to write. I would rather spend the text and code in the book getting across the higher-level points of what/why/how for effects than to produce gobs of code for each effects showing how it might be implemented using only the rudimentary times that are currently offered in the JDK. I'm betting that the same is true for the readers.

  
  Also, as Romain said, this book is not about Data Binding. I agree that this is an incredibly important topic for Swing and for desktop apps in general. But the book is about rich effects, not data binding. It can't be a book for everyone and every purpose...
  

  Posted by: chet on January 28, 2007 at 12:17 PM

• Hi Chet,
  The contents of the Book Filthy Rich Clients are very good.This book really helps Swing Developers to create great UI's.I have one Suggestion ,at the last page of the book if you specify where and all these swing applications are used. List of those applications with few Screenshots and links to their Websites.I think this will make more people to shift from the other technologies to swing for UI Development.If I am not correct with my opinion Iam sorry.Hope you release free electronic edition of Filthy Rich Clients soon.
  cheers,
  Dhilshuk Reddy

  Posted by: dhilshuk on January 29, 2007 at 12:03 AM

• Just curious, where does this idea of free electronic version come from? I mean, you don't expect Stephen King to release his latest book free online, do you? And in CS field, an electronic version is arguably even more useful than the paper one..

  Dmitri
  

  Posted by: trembovetski on January 29, 2007 at 09:35 AM

• Just curious, where does this idea of free electronic version come from?

  Do you know Bruce Eckel? :)

  Posted by: matheus_eduardo on January 31, 2007 at 09:24 AM

• Yes I know Bruce Eckel as Author of Thinking in Java.
  All his books are for free download.
  Electronic Edition is one which can be download directly from internet in PDF or Zip ..etc forms.
  Staying in the Open Souce I don't why Romain and Chet are not making the Filthy Rich Clients book as free dowload.
  What I feel is that the marketing of Java Swing is not so good.
  So if something like Filthy Rich Clients book is available for free it could attract more developer to shift to Java Swings.
  Hope some day this will be true.
  cheers,
  Dhilshuk Reddy.

  Posted by: dhilshuk on February 07, 2007 at 10:12 PM

• Er...if its supposed to be published in time for JavaOne, shouldn't it be pre-orderable on Amazon? There are some books I've put on preorder a year in advance...ok, when I put them on order it was only supposed to be a month out, it just wound up being a year!!
  Anyway, what gives??
  

  Posted by: mezmo on March 02, 2007 at 07:55 PM

• mesmo: You got me; it's my first book. I think the timeframe for this book is pretty compressed. And, oddly, there's not the press momentum behind this that there is for, say, the latest Harry Potter. Philistines. Anyway, the book is actually posted on the uk and jp Amazon sites, just not on the US site. Yet. Hopefully it will be up there soon...

  Posted by: chet on March 02, 2007 at 08:46 PM

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