Overview

Rogue Wave JViews Framework is a structured 2D graphics package for creating highly customizable, visually rich graphical user interfaces. It complements the simple components provided by Swing or AWT, allowing Java GUI programmers to develop far more intuitive displays of information. Examples of such types of displays include schematics, workflow and process flow diagrams, command and control displays, network management displays, and any application requiring a map. The Rogue Wave JViews Framework (or the Framework, for short) is ideal for the rapid development of these custom GUIs.

The Framework package

The Rogue Wave JViews Framework package consists of a set of JavaBeans and an Application Programming Interface (API).

JavaBeans(TM)

The JavaBean components allow you to get a fast start with the Framework. You can start your favorite Integrated Development Environment (IDE), import the beans, connect them to any other beans, compile, and run. You can have a working example of a Rogue Wave JViews applet or application in just a few minutes. These beans are an excellent beginning when learning the features of Rogue Wave JViews, and can be customized for delivery to your users as well. See Framework JavaBeans.

API

Most applications will, however, require functionality that goes far beyond what these pre-packaged beans offer, and this is why the Framework is delivered with an API. This API is a fully documented class library allowing you to build the custom look-and-feel that your application needs. Once you understand how the basic parts of the library work, you can customize or extend it. The architecture of the library is completely open to extension.

JViews Framework as Rogue Wave JViews foundation

JViews Framework package provides the base functionality for graphics applications built with Rogue Wave JViews products. It handles the creation and manipulation of basic graphic objects such as lines, rectangles, and labels, as well as any of the custom objects that you might create. JViews Framework also provides the optimized data structures that allow the graphic objects to be panned, zoomed, and selected with optimal performance. Finally, it provides a set of behaviors that can be used to define the user interactions with the display and the graphic objects. All the other Rogue Wave JViews packages rely on JViews Framework for these core-level services.
The essential features of JViews Framework are:
  • Graphic objects that are drawn on the screen.
  • Managers that handle collections of graphic objects.
  • Graphers that are managers for graph structures, that is, nodes and links.
  • Views that are lightweight components used to display managers and graphers.
  • Interactors used to manipulate objects interactively.
  • Composite graphics used to create graphic objects from other graphic objects.