What Is AWT (Abstract Windows Toolkit)

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∟What Is AWT (Abstract Windows Toolkit)

This section describes what is AWT (Abstract Windows Toolkit) - A Java package, java.awt.* that allows Java applications to operate graphical devices and create GUI (Graphical User Interfaces).

What Is AWT (Abstract Windows Toolkit)? AWT is a Java package, java.awt.* that allows Java applications to operate graphical devices and create GUI (Graphical User Interfaces).

The JDK documentation offers another description of AWT: "AWT contains all of the classes for creating user interfaces and for painting graphics and images. A user interface object such as a button or a scrollbar is called, in AWT terminology, a component. The Component class is the root of all AWT components. See Component for a detailed description of properties that all AWT components share."

The AWT package, java.awt.* was introduced in JDK 1.0. Later in JDK 1.2, the Swing package, javax.swing.*, was introduced to provide a richer API and hiding AWT behind a wrapper layer.

The AWT package contains following major class:

java.awt.AWTEvent - The root class of all SWT event classes.
java.awt.Button - Represents a labeled button.
java.awt.Canvas - Represents a blank rectangular area of the screen onto which the application can draw or from which the application can trap input events from the user.
java.awt.Checkbox - Represents a graphical component with either an "on" (true) or "off" (false) state.
java.awt.Color - Encapsulates colors in the default sRGB color space.
java.awt.Component - A graphical representation that can be displayed on the screen and that can interact with the user.
java.awt.Container - A logical component that can hold other components as a group.
java.awt.Desktop - Allows the application to interact with various desktop capabilities.
java.awt.Dialog - Represents a top-level window with a title and a border that is typically used to take some form of input from the user.
java.awt.Event - Represents a labeled button.
java.awt.FlowLayout - Arranges components in a directional flow, much like lines of text in a paragraph.
java.awt.Font - Represents fonts, which are used to render text in a visible way.
java.awt.Frame - Represents a top-level window with a title and a border.
java.awt.Graphics - An abstract base class for all graphics contexts that allow an application to draw onto components that are realized on various devices, as well as onto off-screen images.
java.awt.GraphicsEnvironment - Describes the collection of GraphicsDevice objects and Font objects available to a Java(tm) application on a particular platform.
java.awt.GridBagLayout - A flexible layout manager that aligns components vertically, horizontally or along their baseline without requiring that the components be of the same size.
java.awt.GridLayout - A layout manager that lays out a container's components in a rectangular grid.
java.awt.Image - An abstract class acting as the superclass of all classes that represent graphical images.
java.awt.Label - A component for placing text in a container.
java.awt.List - A component presenting the user with a scrolling list of text items.
java.awt.Menu - A pull-down menu component that is deployed from a menu bar.
java.awt.MenuBar - Encapsulates the platform's concept of a menu bar bound to a frame.
java.awt.MenuItem - An item associated to the MenuBar.
java.awt.MouseInfo - Provides methods for getting information about the mouse, such as mouse pointer location and the number of mouse buttons.
java.awt.Panel - The simplest container class.
java.awt.Point - Represents a location in (x,y) coordinate space, specified in integer precision.
java.awt.Polygon - Encapsulates a description of a closed, two-dimensional region within a coordinate space.
java.awt.Rectangle - Specifies an area in a coordinate space that is enclosed by the Rectangle object's upper-left point (x,y) in the coordinate space, its width, and its height.
java.awt.Robot - Generates native system input events for the purposes of test automation, self-running demos, and other applications where control of the mouse and keyboard is needed.
java.awt.Scrollbar - Embodies a scroll bar, a familiar user-interface object.
java.awt. ScrollPane - A container class which implements automatic horizontal and/or vertical scrolling for a single child component.
java.awt.SystemTray - Represents the system tray for a desktop.
java.awt.Taskbar - Allows a Java application to interact with the system task area (taskbar, Dock, etc.).
java.awt.TextArea - A multi-line region that displays text.
java.awt.TextField - A text component that allows for the editing of a single line of text.
java.awt.Toolkit - The abstract superclass of all actual implementations of the Abstract Window Toolkit.
java.awt.TrayIcon - Represents a tray icon that can be added to the system tray.
java.awt.Window object - A top-level window with no borders and no menubar.