Build Java Desktop application prototype (i)

In this article, I'll describe a prototype of Java desktop application, which I call jimageing. I intend to focus on the framework of the application, explaining how I made the technical decisions and how I solved the problems that arose during the development process.

Why build a prototype?

Many applications have been developed for several reasons, starting with a prototype. The first of these reasons is that you have to be sure that you can meet the needs of your users with existing technologies. For example, Windows Integration cannot be implemented in a swing application without local code, which leads to the loss of some Java cross-platform advantages. SWT provides a limited integration with the operating system, which allows you to run the same application on many local platforms. On many occasions, the J2SE platform provides you with the rich performance you need to build a complex desktop application. Before you build a large Java desktop project, you should always build a prototype to see if J2SE meets the needs of the application.

On the other hand, it proves that your ideas can be implemented and that your technical decisions are correct, and that a prototype can get the user's feedback as early as possible during the development process. Prototypes can also help you estimate the time and resources needed to complete your project. Spend a lot of work to build a user interface with menus, dialog boxes, drag-and-drop features, clipping support, recovery management, printing, and more. Before you start this work, you should know how difficult it is to build your application's core functionality. If you have to use a Third-party custom component, you should test them to see if they can work with your prototype. If you have to solve the scalability and performance problems, you should find the solution through the prototype state.

User Requirements

The Jimageing prototype is a desktop application that allows you to annotate pictures. Email may be the most popular "collaboration tool", but you can improve the ability to annotate screenshots with a picture tool that allows you to draw lines, draw rectangles, ellipses, and write annotation messages on a picture.

If a jimageing user uses more than one operating system, it is a natural choice for such an application java. When Windows dominates the desktop market, some users choose either Mac or Linux. For example, when Java developers collaborate on a project over the Internet, one possibility is that they can not use the same operating system.

This user interface is very simple, it includes a toolbar and a paint area. is sufficient for testing the primary functionality of the application. The following illustration shows how this interface looks:

Packages and Classes

The following figure shows the prototype code structure. The top-most package in the application contains only the main class, which is described in detail in the next paragraph. I'm going to describe other classes that might be used in future articles.