It's all about Java

Monday, 29 January 2018

Swing: JFrame usage demo

This post helps in understanding usage of JFrame class with an example


Swing toolkit categorizes components into 2 types. They are:

  • Containers
  • Controls

Containers allows Controls to be arranged on them. JPanel, JFrame and JDialog are few which are frequently used.

Controls are components like Buttons, labels, tables etc. These controls are arranged on containers using different layout managers.

All Swing class names starts with J stands for Java which symbolizes swing is pure java! 

Layout Managers:

Layout manager is responsible for laying out controls on containers according to the business requirement. Example layout managers are BorderLayout, GridLayout, GridBagLayout and FlowLayout.

Few points about JFrame:
  • JFrame is considered as a main window of the application.for almost all swing based applications
  • All other controls and containers are created as child components of JFrame
  • JFrama holds special components like  Menu bar, Tool bar etc  

Example program

1 import javax.swing.JFrame;
2 import javax.swing.SwingUtilities;
3
4 /**
5  *
6  * Simple class to demonstrate JFrame container of swing toolkit
7  *
8  * @author Nagasharath
9  *
10 */
11public class FrameDemo extends JFrame {
12
13 private final String title = "It's all abt java!...  ";
14
15 /**
16 * set properties of the main window. Title, size of frame and position/location
17 */
18 public FrameDemo() {
19 this.setTitle(title);
20 this.setSize(300, 200);
21 this.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
22 initComponents();
23 }
24
25 /**
26 * It is used in future articles for instantiating controls like buttons etc.
27 * left empty for now.
28 */
29 private void initComponents() {
30 }
31
32 public static void main(String[] args) {
33
34 Runnable r = () -> {
35 FrameDemo demo = new FrameDemo();
36 demo.setVisible(true);
37 };
38 SwingUtilities.invokeLater(r);
39 }
40}
41


Line 1: Our class FrameDemo extends JFrame hence gets all benefits that JFrame possess    

Line 20: Sets the width 300 and height 200. How ever frame is re sizable at run time

Line 21:  Puts the frame at the center of the desktop monitor

Line 36: Unless call to setVisible(true), frame can not be seen at all.

Line 38: It is always good practice to call setVisible(true) in invokeLater().

Output on Win 10:

The look and feel we see below  is default which is same on all platforms 

This Look and feel can be changed using UIManager class. We see it in coming posts.  

      
JFrame with title


Sunday, 28 January 2018

Java Multi threaded programming basics with Reentrant lock

Java Multi threaded programming basics with Reentrant locks

As we have seen in earlier post that implicit locking mechanism achieved using synchronized keyword slows down the application performance. Hence java concurrency api gives explicit locking mechanism to achieve mutual exclusion among shared object.

How using explicit locks are better than implicit lock?


  • Explicit lock acquires lock per Thread basis and not per method invoke basis. It is inverse in the case of implicit lock.  
  • If a method is synchronized then every invocation of that method involves acquiring and releasing of lock. This process really slows down the application performance. 
  • Hence it is always good idea to prefer reentrent lock or explicit lock to implicit lock.
  • ReentrantLock is a class available in java.util.concurrency package
  • lock() and unlock() methods are used used to acquire and release the lock.
  • Condition class is used in place of Object class wait(), notifyAll() and notify().
  • signal() and await() of Condtion are used mostly 
Let's see the  Java Multi threaded programming basics Producer and Consumer Problem's solution with Reentrent lock.


import java.util.Iterator;
import java.util.concurrent.CopyOnWriteArrayList;
import java.util.concurrent.locks.Condition;
import java.util.concurrent.locks.ReentrantLock;

/**
 * In {@code BufferImpl} we have seen thread safe 
 * buffer implementation using implicit lock/ synchronization block
 * 
 * This {@code BufferImpl_conc} we see same implementation replacing implicit
 * lock with concurrency utility classes Reentrant Locks
 * 
 * Buffer implementation with ArrayList and with Producer consumer 
 * problem implementation
 * 
 * @author Nagasharath
 *
 */
public class BufferImpl_conc {

   private CopyOnWriteArrayList<String> buffer;
   private final short SIZE = 10;
   private boolean isBufferFull = false;
   private ReentrantLock lock;
   private Condition condition;

  public BufferImpl_conc() {
     buffer = new CopyOnWriteArrayList<String>();
     lock = new ReentrantLock();
     condition = lock.newCondition();
  }

 /**
  * @throws InterruptedException
  */
 private void producesFeed() throws InterruptedException {
    lock.lock();
    try {
       while (true) {
         if (isBufferFull) {
             System.out.println("Started Consuming!....\n");
             condition.signal();
             condition.await();
        }
        buffer.add(String.valueOf(System.nanoTime()));
        if (SIZE <= buffer.size()) {
              isBufferFull = true;
              Thread.sleep(10000);
              System.out.println("Buffer full. Production halts...\n");
       }
     }
    } finally {
        lock.unlock();
    }
 }

 /**
  * @throws InterruptedException
  */
 private void consumesFeed() throws InterruptedException {
    lock.lock();
    try {
       while (true) {
          Iterator<String> iter = buffer.iterator();
          while (iter.hasNext()) {
             String next = iter.next();
             System.out.println("Consuming element: " + next);
             buffer.remove(buffer.indexOf(next));
          }
          isBufferFull = false;
          System.out.println("Started producing!....");
          condition.signal();
          condition.await();
      }
   } finally {
      lock.unlock();
   }
 }
 /**
  * @author Nagasharath
  *
  */
 class ProducerThread extends Thread {
     @Override
    public void run() {
      try {
        producesFeed();
      } catch (InterruptedException e) {
      }
  }
 }

 /**
  * @author Nagasharath
  *
  */
 class ConsumerThread extends Thread {
  @Override
  public void run() {
    try {
      consumesFeed();
    } catch (InterruptedException e) {
    }
  }
 }
 public static void main(String[] args) {
   BufferImpl_conc impl = new BufferImpl_conc();
   ProducerThread producerThread = impl.new ProducerThread();
   ConsumerThread consumerThread = impl.new ConsumerThread();
   producerThread.start();
   consumerThread.start();
 }
}

Most parts of the program are same as we used in the post Java Multi threaded programming basics It is advised to read my post  Java Multi threaded programming basics before reading this. I try to explain changes from earlier post program here

  1 private final short SIZE = 10;
  2 private boolean isBufferFull = false;
  3 private ReentrantLock lock;
  4 private Condition condition;

Line 3: Instance of ReentrantLock is similar to synchronized keyword locking but it is more intelligent.
Line 4: Condition instance has methods which replaces Object class wait and notify() methods.

  1  public BufferImpl_conc() {
  2     buffer = new CopyOnWriteArrayList<String>();
  3     lock = new ReentrantLock();
  4     condition = lock.newCondition();
  5  }
Line 3 and Line 4: Instantiates lock and condition Objects

 1 private void producesFeed() throws InterruptedException {
 2   lock.lock();
 3    try {
 4      while (true) {
 5         if (isBufferFull) {
 6             System.out.println("Started Consuming!....\n");
 7             condition.signal();
 8             condition.await();
 9         }
 10         buffer.add(String.valueOf(System.nanoTime()));
 11         if (SIZE <= buffer.size()) {
 12           isBufferFull = true;
 13           Thread.sleep(10000);
 14           System.out.println("Buffer full. Production halts...\n");
 15         }
 16       }
 17     } finally {
 18          lock.unlock();
 19     }
 20 }
Line 1: await() at line 8 throws InterruptedException
Line 2: lock.lock() statement is equal to the synchronized(this)  {  . . .  }
Line 7: condition.signal() notifies the waiting thread on same object to start it's execution
Line 8: condition.await() makes current thread to wait on isBufferFull == true condition check
Line 17 to Line 19: lock.unlock() must be called in finally block always

Output:  


Buffer full. Production halts...

Started Consuming!....

Consuming element: 2838231927112595
Consuming element: 2838231927212435
Consuming element: 2838231927229502
Consuming element: 2838231927238888
Consuming element: 2838231927246995
Consuming element: 2838231927254675
Consuming element: 2838231927261075
Consuming element: 2838231927267902
Consuming element: 2838231927274302
Consuming element: 2838231927281555
Started producing!....
Buffer full. Production halts...

Started Consuming!....

Consuming element: 2838242029132348
Consuming element: 2838242029210428
Consuming element: 2838242029244561
Consuming element: 2838242029271015
Consuming element: 2838242029386215
Consuming element: 2838242029448935
Consuming element: 2838242029479228
Consuming element: 2838242029504401
Consuming element: 2838242029529148
Consuming element: 2838242029553895
Started producing!....
Buffer full. Production halts...

Started Consuming!....

Consuming element: 2838252029524881
Consuming element: 2838252029547921
Consuming element: 2838252029556881
Consuming element: 2838252029563281
Consuming element: 2838252029568401
Consuming element: 2838252029573521
Consuming element: 2838252029578215
Consuming element: 2838252029582908
Consuming element: 2838252029588028
Consuming element: 2838252029593148
Started producing!....
Buffer full. Production halts...

Started Consuming!....

Consuming element: 2838262032106639
Consuming element: 2838262032149732
Consuming element: 2838262032165092
Consuming element: 2838262032193252
Consuming element: 2838262032204772
Consuming element: 2838262032214585
Consuming element: 2838262032223972
Consuming element: 2838262032233359
Consuming element: 2838262032241892
Consuming element: 2838262032251279
Started producing!....
Buffer full. Production halts...

Started Consuming!....

Consuming element: 2838272040024285
Consuming element: 2838272040065245
Consuming element: 2838272040077619
Consuming element: 2838272040086152
Consuming element: 2838272040093832
Consuming element: 2838272040101512
Consuming element: 2838272040108766
Consuming element: 2838272040115592
Consuming element: 2838272040122845
Consuming element: 2838272040130099
Started producing!....

 

Java desktop GUI.

Graphical user interface in short GUI makes computer users easy to understand and use the application software comfortably. Almost all modern programming languages allows application developers to develop GUIs.

Java has AWT/Swing as default API as part of Java Foundation classes in short JFC which are shipped with JDK. Hence these toolkits can be used directly in our applications with out adding external libraries like jars to our application's class path. But there are some other toolkits which found useful and industry endorsed in developing GUI.

    •      SWT 
    •      JFaces [Framework for SWT]
    •      Java FX
    •      Swing
    •      AWT

AWT:

Abstract window toolkit is available since java first version. AWT uses native operating system resources like Fonts, colors and components like table, tree, dialogues, windows etc.

Few notable points about AWT:
  • AWT is heavy weight. It uses OS resources
  • There are limited components in AWT precisely only components which are available in native OS. 
  • We can not have a new component according to our business logic need. ex: Tri state checkbox or treetable  
  • AWT behaves differently on different platforms
  • Hence it violates the java Platform independence rule
  • The program GUI developed with AWT looks differently on different OSs. Means on linux it renders linux graphics look and feel and on windows platform it renders windows graphics look and feel.   
  • Provides event model API which also used by Swing toolkit

Swing:

  • Swing was designed and developed keeping all cons in mind that are caused due to using AWT toolkit.
  • First of all "Swing is pure java hence it is platform independent." This statement made many good things possible:
Few notable points about Swing:
  •  Swing is light weight. It does not depend on native OS resources 
  •  Unlike AWT, it is extensible. New custom components can be developed according to program  requirement. 
   NOTE: See swingx library in it's official site.
  •  Swing has Pluggable look-and-feel support in short PLAF.
  •  Drag and Drop api, 2D api, internationalization are few among other included in Swing toolkit.
  •  Netbeans IDE itself is a good example for swing based application used allot now a days.
  •  Few GUI experts noticed that Swing is slow and not quite professional for commercial applications

SWT:

Standard Widget toolkit in short SWT is another toolkit for developing Java Desktop GUI based applications.
Compared to Swing it is faster and consistent in performance and Eclipse IDE itself is an example for SWT based applications.
Eclipse is industry endorsed IDE specifically for java based software development.
This is not shipped with JDK. Please see eclipse.org [official site] for more details.
And there are Integrated development environments in short IDE which provides Drag and Drop [DAD] palettes also known as GUI Builders for above toolkits for programmer's convenience.
Mostly used IDEs are:
It is advised to code manually to develop the GUI rather using GUI builders provided by different IDEs. And for beginners.  


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