Comparison, not Competition of SWT/JFace in Action books

[Ko Ko Naing]

Hi authors,
I have the book named The Definitive Guide to SWT and JFACE. I'm not sure whether one of the authors has had a look at that book before or not. Could you please identify the major approach in explaining SWT/JFace topics in your book, which is different from that book?

I'm just trying to compare the difference between the two books so that those who wanna buy have an idea of which to buy. Thanks...

[Matt Scarpino]

Hi,

I haven't looked through The Definitive Guide to SWT and JFace but I've seen its table of contents. We cover a lot of the same material - widgets, events, graphics - but there are three important differences:

1. We chose to present SWT and JFace side-by-side instead of as two separate parts. For example, our chapter on Events covers SWT Events and JFace Actions/Contributions. This lets reader see the trade-offs for using both tools, which have a number of overlapping capabilities.

2. We chose to go over some of the advanced capabilities related to SWT/JFace: integrating SWT with COM objects, working with Draw2D/GEF, and the Rich Client Platform. Neat stuff!

3. The Definitive Guide covers a few topics in greater depth than ours - custom widgets comes to mind.

That's mainly it. I'll try to grab a copy of The Definitive Guide at some point to make a better comparison.

Matt Scarpino

[Ko Ko Naing]

Originally posted by Matt Scarpino:
2. We chose to go over some of the advanced capabilities related to SWT/JFace: integrating SWT with COM objects, working with Draw2D/GEF, and the Rich Client Platform. Neat stuff!

Well then, I guess urs would be a bit advance than The Definitive Guide... And one more difference might be the order of the chapters... Books from Apress follows its ancestor Wrox(Reference) style, while of course your book got Manning(Tutorial Learning) style as usual... Or is it not?

3. The Definitive Guide covers a few topics in greater depth than ours - custom widgets comes to mind.

I guess that's why the Definitive Guide is thicker than urs... Anyway, it's really great to know about the book in such details...

[Eusebio Floriano]

Can "SWT/JFace in Action" be read by anyone who never worked with SWT/JFACE ?

Regards,

[Stephen Holder]

Hi Vinicius-

Our goal was to make the book accessible to pretty much any java programmer, regardless of their experience with any specific UI toolkit, so it does not assume that you have any prior SWT/JFace knowledge. It does not require any experience with Swing or AWT, either, though we do occasionally draw comparisons between JFace and Swing. These are always in addition to our main discussion of a topic, though, so if you do not have Swing experience it will not be a problem.

-Steve Holder

[Thomas Paul]

Originally posted by Vinicius Boson:
Can "SWT/JFace in Action" be read by anyone who never worked with SWT/JFACE ?

Regards,

Since I read this book with no knowledge of SWT/JFace I am probably a good person to answer this. The book assumes ZERO knowledge of SWT/JFace. Even if your knowledge is limited to "they are some kind of GUI thing" you will be fine. The book starts at the beginning and builds up nicely. Some knowledge of GUI development with Swing or AWT is definitely a help.