HELP! * GREY=local LOCAL HTML version of Foils prepared January 8,96

Foil 39 Package Example: AWT -- Abstract Windowing Toolkit

From Overview of Java SC95 Tutorial on Web Technologies -- December 4,95. by NPAC Team * See also color IMAGE
This package is at heart of visual Java programming. It has functionality (and thus also complexity) comparable to X Windows or MS Windows.
AWT offers an abstraction of a platform-independent window server. The same Java windowing code will run under UNIX (implemented via X Windows) and on PCs (implemented via MS Windows).
Java/AWT is the latest and the most advanced offering in the long sequence of Sun efforts to set world-wide windowing standards. Previous unsuccessful attemps were:
  • SunView ('85) -- first UNIX windowing system. Initially successful but, proprietary and kernel based, was dominated by public, server based X Windows.
  • NeWS ('87) -- Extended PostScript based programmable window server. More advanced than X but proprietary and more difficult to port and hence forgotten. Gosling started here!
  • OpenLook ('90) -- compact GUI package for X by Sun + AT&T. Never made it, dominated by less elegant but more public Motif.

Northeast Parallel Architectures Center, Syracuse University, npac@npac.syr.edu

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