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I am now working on the GUI of the Sun Certified Java Developer assignment,and is the most difficult part of all the assignment in my view, because i am so weak in designing GUI.

[

This is the intial design of the forum wihtout any colors,graphics..etc
I want to know good is the layout of this form??
[ October 17, 2006: Message edited by: Khaled Mahmoud ]
 
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There are two really nice, free, books available online that will answer your question. Take a look at this webpage! At least these books have been invaluable to me...
Good luck!
 
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My first recommendation is that you first study all the layouts that Swing offers you, and what are the differences of every one.

You typically use more than one layout in every form and you need to understand what the effects of their use will be.

You have plenty of options

1. BorderLayout
2. FlowLayout
3. GridLayout
4. GridBagLayout
5. SpringLayout
6. BoxLayout
7. CardLayout

Take a time to try every one and see what they can do for you.

My second recommendation is that you design your forms before start the coding. Make a sketch of how you would like your form to look and then start selecting the layouts that can help you do that.

My third recommendation is design-by-panels. Do not pretend to put all your controls in one single panel, or directly into the form's content pane.

Divide and conquer, make a panel for your form title, another panel for the status bar, and if you have different sections of controls in the form, create separte panel for them. For instance, all the buttons go at the botton of the form, then put them all together in a panel.

Create every panel individually and make every panel look good. Once that is done, it is pretty easy to put all together in a sinlge panel and add that last one to the form's content pane.

My fourth recommendation do not rush into implementing listeners and adding business logic to the application. Concentrate on the looks of the application. Once it looks like you want, then start implementing the listeners and event handlers.

My fifth recommendation is follow convetions. Things like titlebars, statusbar, and iconography can be reused from form to form. Try to make sure that all your forms follow the same design conventions, or your application will look like a Frankie.

Iconography is specially useful to cause a good impression, use it carefully and take you time to contemplate your form and do the necessary adjuts to make it look good.

In iconography it is extremly important that the icons and images you use are related to the action they are used for, and they are consistently used for the same purpose througout all the application. Therefore be carefull with this.

My final recommendation is: making a form look good takes time. Take your time to contemplate your form ask yourself what you could do to make it look better and try it. Sometimes it works, and you come out with a nicer layout for your controls or a very nice iconography for your buttons or menus. Other times you just get back to what it was.

I hope that helps!
[ October 19, 2006: Message edited by: Edwin Dalorzo ]
 
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