Editorial Review:
"Swing Hacks" helps Java developers move beyond the basics of Swing, the graphical user interface (GUI) standard since Java 2. If you're a Java developer looking to build enterprise applications with a first-class look and feel, Swing is definitely one skill you need to master. This latest title from O'Reilly is a reference to the cool stuff in Swing. It's about the interesting things you learn over the years--creative, original, even weird hacks--the things that make you say, "I didn't know you could even do that with Swing!" "Swing Hacks" will show you how to extend Swing's rich component set in advanced and sometimes non-obvious ways. The book touches upon the entire Swing gamut-tables, trees, sliders, spinners, progress bars, internal frames, and text components. Detail is also provided on JTable/JTree, threaded component models, and translucent windows. You'll learn how to filter lists, power-up trees and tables, and add drag-and-drop support. "Swing Hacks" will show you how to do fun things that will directly enhance your own applications. Some are visual enhancements to make your software look better. Some are functional improvements to make your software do something it couldn't do before. Some are even just plain silly, in print only to prove it could be done. The book will also give you give you a small glimpse of the applications coming in the future. New technology is streaming into the Java community at a blistering rate, and it gives application developers a whole new set of blocks to play with. With its profusion of tips and tricks, "Swing Hacks" isn't just for the developer who wants to build a better user interface. It's also ideally suited for client-sideJava developers who want to deliver polished applications, enthusiasts who want to push Java client application boundaries, and coders who want to bring powerful techniques to their own applications. Whatever your programming needs, "Swing Hacks" is packed with programming lessons that increase your competency with interface-building tools.
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Customer Reviews
Average Customer Rating: 
It's Great for solving a lot of problems but isn't recent 2008-05-10
It met my test because what I needed to know was easy to find and I was able to make a quick fix while maintaining Java software and I knocked out a couple of problems that way. It was easy to read, a good index and had sample implementations. The only problem I found is that it seems out of date and I would gladly purchase a more recent edition.
Not even worth keeping on the bookshelf...  2008-03-11
Lacking some up-to-date information is usually not a problem that impacts most books. You can usually pull out one or two decent tricks, methodologies or pieces of information you didn't know before. This book, however, falls flat on its face.
Filled with completely useless "hacks", use of extremely common knowledge/practices and general lack of content make this book a complete waste. Beginners may find the information interesting, but in terms of use in their professional lives, useless. Advanced users will find that other methodologies and "hacks" out there are much more useful and function much more efficiently.
Aside from the uselessness of the information provided for use within enterprise GUI front-ends, what bothered me most was the inefficiency of the data provided. With some simple tweaking, complete rewrites based on the ideas presented, etc. you can come up with much more efficient and powerful components and component extensions yourselves.
Don't waste your time.
Interesting but not very useful  2008-02-02
This book gives a good set of more in depth approaches to building GUI in Swing. While reading it I had a lot of 'that's interesting' moments. However, a lot of the examples feel more like an idea of what needs to be done to achieve something rather than a complete (and robust) implementation. What is more disappointing, I found that some advice in the book is misleading. For example Hack #57 demonstrates how to use the glass pane to intercept and riderect mouse events. Unfortunately, as demonstrated, this approach doesn't work at all in the applications that use any components that have menus. A very significant shortcoming, in my opinion, that is not mentioned in the book.
everything else  2007-12-04
This book had ways of implementing all the useful features that users expect such as drag and drop, transparent/non-rectangular frames, and lots of other things. Well worth the money
finally a useful book with no bla-bla 2007-02-17
Along with Swing Hacks I bought Swing Second Edition by Robinson and Vorobiev. What a contrast! Marinacci gives concise, fascinating, and useful examples. He leaves out the junk that you can get from reading the API. His hacks are short and remarkably clear. And if a hack doesn't interest you, you can just skip it.
In contrast, R&V dump a ton of junk on you, and you have to sift through it. Most of it is a rehash of the API, plus deadly boring chit-chat about what extends what. You can read and read and read and not learn anything useful.
I'd rank Marinacci up at the top with the Effective Java, the Swing Tutorial and Thinking in Java.
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