CMSI 370
IN T E R A C T I O N DE S I G N
Fall 2007
Assignment 1004
This assignment is meant to get your feet wet with Swing, particularly with component creation and layout.
For Submission
Putting together Swing user interfaces takes a lot of
practice, particularly in the pure layout/positioning
area. The kind of programming specified in this
assignment should eventually become second na-
ture for you, because in the long run, layout/
positioning will be the least of your interaction de-
sign problems!
What to Do
Choose at least three (3) user interface displays of
sufficient complexity from existing software, and
replicate their look and layout with Swing. While
there are no hard rules for “sufficient complexity,”
these characteristics can serve as a guide:
•At least four (4) distinct types of atomic compo-
nents (i.e., labels, buttons, text fields, check
boxes, radio buttons, sliders, menu items, etc.)
•At least ten (10) actual components (e.g., 3 but-
tons, 4 labels, 2 text fields, and 2 check boxes)
•Genuine 2-dimensional layout — so, no toolbars
or simple lists
•Multipanel interface (e.g., tabs, master-detail,
previous-next)
Good candidates include: preference, configura-
tion, or setup dialogs; non-trivial data entry win-
dows; control panels; instrumentation displays.
When in doubt, show me the interface and I can
tell you if it’s complex enough.
Submit each of your “facsimiles” as self-contained
source code trees with Java source starting at src/
main/java, resources at src/main/resources (if appli-
cable), and an Ant build.xml script or Maven
pom.xml descriptor at the top-level directory. Since
you’re essentially doing three mini-projects, use Ant
and Maven at least once; i.e., you should provide
one facsimile with build.xml and two with pom.xml,
or vice versa.
How to Turn it In
If you haven’t already done so, make sure to follow
the CVS Depot Preparation instructions from As-
signment 0913. Then, specific to this assignment:
1. Under your checked-out homework/cmsi370 di-
rectory, create a facsimiles subdirectory.
2. Place each of your facsimile programs in its
own subdirectory under homework/cmsi370/
facsimiles. Stick with all-lower case directory
names, without spaces.
3. Add then commit the files to CVS. When in
doubt, cvs update to verify file statuses.
For example, if you decided to name your 3 fac-
similes explorer, thunderbird, and gaim, respectively,
then your final checked-out CVS directory tree for
this assignment will look like this:
homework/
cmsi370/
facsimiles/
explorer/
build.xml or pom.xml
src/
main/
java/
resources/ (if applicable)
thunrderbird/
build.xml or pom.xml
src/
main/
java/
resources/ (if applicable)
gaim/
build.xml or pom.xml
src/
main/
java/
resources/ (if applicable)
