User Interface Blog

The Swing team published Swing Sightings #22. Take a look at more than 20 Java applications and over 140 screenshots.

The SwingLabs project develops new user interface components for the Java programming language. A TreeTable component is part of the SwingX project. David John Burrowes from Interaction Designer group of Sun Microsystems, Inc. has published a great article about the user interface specification of a TreeTable component.

If SwingX, JDNC or JDIC projects are new to you, then have a look at Richard Bair weblog where he tells you everything about the projects.

Have you ever asked questions like "Where can I use icons in my application? How about inserting new lines into a table? Should I use a toolbar or a popup menu?" while developing your user inteface? If you have asked these kind of questions you might know how difficult it is to find good answers. 

During the last years the Pattern concept was enthusiastically discussed in the software development community. Starting with the familar Design Patterns book by Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, and John Vlissides. They wrote about object-oriented software design methodology, and presented their solutions in a concrete way that are easy to use and abstract to use in countless situations.

User interface patterns are trying to present design solutions to common interface design issues that can easily be used within your interface design development.

Last week Microsoft released Beta 1 of the next generation Windows operating system Windows Vista. The german windows online magazine WinFuture installed the Beta version (Build 5112) and published several screenshots. The following screenshots are displaying the latest Vista user interface design:

• Start
• Control Panel
• Windows Explorer
• Internet Explorer
• Indexing and Search