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Most applications used with windows are regular Graphical User Interface, or GUI applications. Java allows you to create a GUI application that takes advantage of a rich set of window and control types. If you are going to create an application that the user works directly with, you will most likely want to create a GUI application.

This book will provide a brief introduction into Java applications that make use of Windows. You will be shown how to do this using Java Swing. Swing is Java’s latest release of their windowing system for the Java language. Figure 1.2 shows a Java GUI Application.

Figure 1.2: Java GUI Application

When to use a GUI Application

• Working directly with the user
• Applications that must display graphical information

Limitations of a GUI Application

• More complex to setup than console application
• Less convenient to run in the background