Name: boT120536 Date: 02/26/2001


This is present in all java versions.

There are many glaring holes in AWT which have been present since JDK 1.0, yet which Sun has refused to fix. Presumably this is because they are not present in Swing, and Sun wants developers to use Swing instead of AWT . Unfortunately, this is not always an option. Swing applications are MUCH slower and use MUCH more memory than AWT applications. In addition, trying to mix lightweight and heavyweight components in a single window causes serious problems. There are many technologies which require the use of heavyweight components: Java3D is a prime example, as well as 3rd party libraries such as Quicktime for Java and GL4Java. For these reasons, using Swing often is not an option.

Among the most serious holes are the following:

- Dialogs should be able to have menu bars.
- FileDialogs should have a "select folder" mode.
- FileDialogs should use FilenameFilters, and not simply ignore them.
- TextAreas should offer both line wrap and word wrap.
- TextComponents should allow using multiple fonts and styles within a single component.
- AWT should offer true floating windows.
- It should be possible to set a default button for a window or dialog.

The lack of these features seriously limits the usefulness of Java for writing true applications, especially for developers who need to use native rendering libraries such as Java3D, or who cannot accept the speed and memory overhead which Swing requires.
(Review ID: 117623)
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