• Windowed GUIs
  • Full set of standard window-based GUI classes
  • Extremely easy to build GUI clients

• Images and Audio
  • Support for creating Image objects from .gif , .jpg etc.
  • Includes interfaces to support image processing "filters"
  • Applets can also play audio files

• Networking
  • Library supports retrieving files, images, etc. via URL
  • Full support system for stream sockets, providing access to Internet-based services
  • Internet-wise Virtual Machine can dynamically load classes over the network

Detailed Description:

"The third class library is networking, and we'll deal with it throughout the remainder of the course. For now, let's say that its primary capability is that it allows us to use URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) to go out on the Internet and fetch a piece of information back into our working space and operate on it. In addition to using URLs (at a lower level), we can create sockets using TCP/IP. This class library is associated with the operating environment and interfaces to other platforms that Java works with. These are full Internet-based services, so we have the ability to work with general purpose Internet services like FTP and gopher.

Remember that the Java machine itself is Internet enabled. And so, if the Java virtual machine recognizes that it does not have a particular class that it needs to execute, it will actually try to fetch it across the network for you. In some cases, novice programmers have started a program and suddenly realized that the program wants to go back to places like Sun to access some of the classes that it needs to execute. In most cases, however, Java will execute the classes that are locally located on your individual platform."