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Building Easy Java GUIs with Thinlet, Part 1
by Keld H. Hansen
Despite the widespread use of Swing for GUI development, this API can be far too complex for many simpler tasks. A nifty little tool called Thinlet, defines the GUI in an XML file, helping to solve this problem. This series will guide you through Thinlet's features, demonstrating why this is a very interesting and useful way to build a user interface. The accompanying download contains more than 20 small, working programs through which you can familiarize yourself with this tool. To be fair, I should note that Thinlet doesn't provide for every single GUI feature. Because Thinlet is built upon AWT, it's a really small system—it's .jar file only uses 38Kbytes! Even so, you may be surprised at how many features are packed in this small space.
To illustrate the difference between normal GUI development and Thinlet, take a look at this GUI, made in HTML. It's rather simple, and it's XML syntax:
<form>
Enter your name here:
<input type="text" name="yourname"/>
<input type="button" value="Send"/>
</form>
You've got a prompt, an input field, and a button. In Thinlet, the configuration file looks like this:
<panel>
<label text="Enter your name here:" />
<textfield name="yourname" />
<button text="Send" action="send(yourname.text)" />
</panel>
The naming is different but the structure is the same, and the GUIs are very alike.
Just one benefit of working with Thinlet is that you're not bound to define anything in a configuration file. Parts (or even all) of the GUI may very well be created from your Java program. The following examples show how to mix these possibilities efficiently.
The Calculator Example
For the first example, take a look at the Calculator example on Thinlet's Web site. It shows how to build a panel with a couple of textfields, labels, and a button.
Figure 1. The Calculator Example:
This example builds a panel with a couple of textfields, labels, and a button.
Please note in Figure 1
:
- The panel and its controls ("widgets" as they are called in Thinlet terminology) are defined in an XML configuration file.
- Your Java class must extend the Thinlet class.
- The configuration file must be placed in the same folder as your Java class (not in the root of your package structure, which is often the case).
To run this example, download the Thinlet zip file. Extract the thinlet.jar file and place it in your classpath. The Calculator Example is found in the thinlet.demo package, also in the zip file.
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