SWT : The Standard Widget Toolkit, Volume 1 (The Eclipse Series)

Rating:
Summary: Best book for the details -- and you'll need them!
Review: First, a caveat -- this book only covers SWT, the Standard Widget Toolkit, and not JFace. Presumably, JFace will be covered in a forthcoming book. That said, using JFace well requires a good knowledge of SWT, so it would be a mistake to avoid this book just because it doesn't include JFace topics.

This book was written by Steve Northover, one of the architects of SWT, and Northover's profound knowledge of SWT is evident on every page. He communicates clearly and efficiently the details that you need to know in order to be a good SWT programmer. Understanding event-driven programming is skill of a different order than "regular" programming. Operations aren't as neatly sequenced in the former and, as a result, both programming and debugging can be more difficult, especially for one not used to the programming style. Northover spends a lot of time covering the internals of SWT and making sure that things like the Display and Controls are clearly explained, rather than simply providing examples of how to write an address book in SWT, or something equally useless.

After finishing this book you'll have a solid knowledge of how SWT works and how to write SWT applications that are performant and reasonably defect-free. You'll have an understanding of how the SWT framework works and why certain design choices were made. This knowledge will help you write applications that naturally extend SWT, rather than bending it into a shape it wasn't meant to assume.

I've read Manning's "SWT/JFace in Action" and Apress' "The Definitive Guide to SWT and JFace" as well as this book. Additionally, I'm on a project where we're building a complicated Java client using SWT/JFace and I spend about 30 hours each week up to the elbows in GUI coding. I'm fortunate that I had the opportunity to read Northover's book. Unfortunately, it was the last book I read. If I had read it first, there are a lot of things I would have done differently. Well, there's always refactoring. :)

Rating:
Summary: Not a good value
Review: If you also want information about JFace, that is. I got this before _The Definitive Guide to SWT and JFace_ came out. I assume volume 2 will cover JFace, the MVC layer for SWT, but since the Warner/Harris "Definitive" book does cover JFace, I consider that a better buy. I also like the order that the Definitive book covers things, with Layouts coming before Events.

This book does have the high production values typical of Addison/Wesley, with a larger, easier to read typeface (not that the Definitive book is ugly, just harder on my aging eyes), and a more reasonable thickness for bedtime reading. If you *don't* need JFace, then it's this book that has the edge in readability.

Rating:
Summary: Comprehensive introduction to SWT
Review: This is a straightforward, well written, book on SWT. It starts with installation and goes through the windowing model, the event model, and the entire toolkit in an introductory manner, covering each topic in depth with example code an illustrations. It's not a reference book, it's a walkthrough the toolkit.

The book is well organized, code isn't overused and illustrations are used effectively. The lack of a reference portion is the only fault that I can find with the book. Once you have read it you are done, there is no reason to return for a quick reference. Most similar books have a reference section in the appendix.

If you are looking to use the SWT, or you want to evaluate it, then this is a solid introduction to the toolkit.

Rating:
Summary: The Definitive Guide to SWT
Review: This is one of two books that I purchased at Java One a few weeks ago (I also have the Gamma/Beck book which is also part of the same series). It is written by the chief architects of SWT itself and provides some wonderful insight into the internals of SWT. The examples are well chosen and easy to follow and lots of tips are provided for dealing various arcane SWT issues.

The book intro includes a section on the history of SWT which I found to be fascinating given all of the Swing vs. SWT discussions in the press over the last couple of years. Every widget and layout manager is discussed in considerable detail and there is a nice discussion on creating custom widgets and using custom graphics.

Ultimately, this is a great reference that you will want to keep close by, if you are planning to build any SWT apps, Eclipse plugins or Eclipse RCP apps. I very much look forward to reading Volume 2!