Java3140 java oop java documentation  (Page 3/3)

Figure 2 shows a screen shot of the browser window after selecting the class named JButton in the lower-left frame. If you pull down the thumb in the scroll bar on the right sideof the browser window, you will expose all of the information in the above list.

Figure 2. Screen shot of the API documentation after selecting the JButton class.

The link bar at the top of the page

It can sometimes be difficult to find what you are looking for in the documentation package. Referring back to Figure 2 , you can see a link bar at the top of the page in the rightmost frame. This link bar contains the following hyperlinks:

• Overview - provides summary information about packages (shown in Figure 1 ).
• Package - provides a description of the package that contains the class selected in the lower-left frame.
• Class - provides a description of the class selected in the lower-left frame.
• Use - describes how the class selected in the lower-left frame is used in various packages.
• Tree - provides detailed inheritance hierarchy information for a selected package.
• Deprecated - provides a list of material that has been deprecated (may not be supported in future versions)
• Index - provides a hyperlinked alphabetized index of interfaces, classes, constructors, variables, and methods.
• Help - Describes how the API document is organized.

The various pages that are displayed by selecting these links can often help you to find what you are looking for. Probably the most useful and frequentlyconsulted item in the above list is the Index.

The alphabetical index

The alphabetical index can be extremely useful if you know the full or partial spelling of what you are looking for, beginning with the firstcharacter.

For example, assume that you remember (or you can surmise from what you know about Java properties) that there is a method whose name begins with getSystemLookAndFeel , which returns the name of the LookAndFeel class that implements the native look and feel for a particular operating system. Youcan easily look this up under G in the alphabetical index.

What you will find when you look it up is a brief description of a method named getSystemLookAndFeelClassName that matches what you are looking for. The name of the method is also a hyperlink to the detailed description ofthe same method as it appears in the documentation for the class named UIManager .

A universal documentation format

The documentation for the API is created using a program named javadoc.exe that is contained in the JDK. Therefore, the API documentation for class libraries obtained from outside sources should have thesame format as that described above (assuming that the documentation was produced using javadoc.exe) .

However, the program named javadoc.exe only controls the format of the documentation. It does not produce the explanatory content. It isthe responsibility of the author of the class library to provide that content.

Typical usage of the API documentation

Typical usage of the API documentation consists of the following steps:

• Open the API documentation in your browser.
• Click the class of interest in the lower-left frame.
• Manually search the rightmost frame for summary information about fields, constructors, or methods of interest.
• Click the name of a field, constructor, or method in the summary section to open a detailed description of that field, constructor, or method.

Summary

There are several ways to search for useful information in the Oracle documentation. There is no single approach that will serve all of your needs tofind information in the documentation. You simply need to become familiar with the different ways to search for information in the documentation and beprepared to use the approach that does the best job in each situation.

Miscellaneous

This section contains a variety of miscellaneous information.

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