[Chapter 22] The java.awt.peer Package
Author: David Flanagan
Date: Thu Jul 31 16:16:54 1997

#

| Chapter 22 |

# 22. The java.awt.peer Package

Contents:
java.awt.peer.CanvasPeer (JDK 1.0)
java.awt.peer.CheckboxMenuItemPeer (JDK 1.0)
java.awt.peer.CheckboxPeer (JDK 1.0)
java.awt.peer.ChoicePeer (JDK 1.0)
java.awt.peer.ComponentPeer (JDK 1.0)
java.awt.peer.ContainerPeer (JDK 1.0)
java.awt.peer.DialogPeer (JDK 1.0)
java.awt.peer.FileDialogPeer (JDK 1.0)
java.awt.peer.FontPeer (JDK 1.1)
java.awt.peer.FramePeer (JDK 1.0)
java.awt.peer.LabelPeer (JDK 1.0)
java.awt.peer.LightweightPeer (JDK 1.1)
java.awt.peer.ListPeer (JDK 1.0)
java.awt.peer.MenuBarPeer (JDK 1.0)
java.awt.peer.MenuComponentPeer (JDK 1.0)
java.awt.peer.MenuItemPeer (JDK 1.0)
java.awt.peer.MenuPeer (JDK 1.0)
java.awt.peer.PanelPeer (JDK 1.0)
java.awt.peer.PopupMenuPeer (JDK 1.1)
java.awt.peer.ScrollPanePeer (JDK 1.1)
java.awt.peer.ScrollbarPeer (JDK 1.0)
java.awt.peer.TextAreaPeer (JDK 1.0)
java.awt.peer.TextComponentPeer (JDK 1.0)
java.awt.peer.TextFieldPeer (JDK 1.0)
java.awt.peer.WindowPeer (JDK 1.0)

The `java.awt.peer` package consists entirely of interface definitions. The hierarchy of these interfaces is shown in Figure 22.1. Each `java.awt.peer` interface corresponds to one of the `java.awt` `Component` or `MenuComponent` classes, and as you can see from the figure, the hierarchy of this package is identical to the hierarchy of those portions of the `java.awt` package.

The interfaces in this package define the methods that must be supported by the GUI components on a specific platform. Porting the `java.awt` GUI components to a new platform is a matter of implementing each of the methods in each of the interfaces in this package on top of the native GUI components of that platform. The `Toolkit` object in the `java.awt` package collects the implementations of these peer interfaces for a given platform. `Toolkit` contains methods that create instances of each of the interfaces in this package. Normal applications never need to instantiate these peers directly; instead they use the `java.awt` `Component` classes, which create peers as needed.

Because these peer interfaces are rarely used, and because the methods are quite similar to those of the corresponding `java.awt` component, there is no additional commentary for the individual interface definitions below.

#### Figure 22.1: The java.awt.peer package

## 22.1 java.awt.peer.ButtonPeer (JDK 1.0)

###

    public abstract interface ButtonPeer extends ComponentPeer {
        // Public Instance Methods
                public abstract void setLabel(String label);
    }

### Returned By:

Toolkit.createButton()

java.awt.image.ReplicateScaleFilter (JDK 1.1) |  | java.awt.peer.CanvasPeer (JDK 1.0)