Introduction

The Java toolkit J/Link introduced Mathematica users to a powerful new technology for Mathematica programs to access the functionality of Java classes and, in particular, the extensive class library of Java graphical user interfaces. GUIKit builds on this J/Link foundation by providing a higher-level Mathematica expression syntax for defining a graphical user interface along with a runtime environment for managing and deploying these reusable definitions.

GUIKit simplifies the construction and layout of common user interface programming and eliminates the need to write code using the underlying Java programming language. Mathematica users will find that GUIKit allows them to quickly define interfaces as Mathematica expressions and to program the logic of these user interfaces with familiar Mathematica programming language constructs.

GUIKit also expands on the set of tools available to existing J/Link and Java programmers by providing a reusable deployment model that easily integrates interface definitions into their existing Mathematica add-ons and to develop a library of reusable Mathematica-enhanced user interface widgets.

These tutorials are intended to teach you how to use GUIKit to build graphical user interfaces. They will show the building blocks of GUI definitions, how they can be programmed or scripted by Mathematica. It will show how you can build up libraries of GUI definitions, and how you can add user interfaces to your Mathematica applications.

Mathematica contains a number of applications that contain GUIKit user interfaces; for example, the "Database Explorer" and Equation Trekker. These tutorials will not describe all the uses of GUIKit. If you do not want to learn how to build user interfaces with GUIKit, then perhaps they are not useful. However, you might still care to look at some of the "GUIKit Examples".

One powerful feature of GUIKit is to make it easy for users to load and execute prepackaged custom user interfaces whenever they need them.

Load the GUIKit` package before calling any GUIKit functions.

Here you execute an existing GUIKit definition and, after closing the dialog, the current values of the calculations are returned as results back to Mathematica.

Here is a screen shot of what the previous interface would look like on a typical platform.

GUIKit also provides a convenient Mathematica expression syntax for defining and executing your own simple or complex user interfaces.

Here you create a simple resizable dialog with three very common user interface components.