The Java Tutorials are practical guides for programmers who want to use the Java programming language to create applications. They include hundreds of complete, working examples, and dozens of lessons. Groups of related lessons are organized into "trails".

The Java Tutorials describe features that are new for Java SE 6. For best results, download JDK 6.

Trails Covering the Basics

These trails are available in book form as The Java Tutorial. To buy this book, refer to the box to the right.

• Getting Started — An introduction to Java technology and lessons on installing Java development software and using it to create a simple program.
• Learning the Java Language — Lessons describing the essential concepts and features of the Java Programming Language.
• Essential Java Classes — Lessons on exceptions, basic input/output, concurrency, regular expressions, and the platform environment.
• Collections — Lessons on using and extending the Java Collections Framework.
• Swing — An introduction to the Swing GUI toolkit, with an overview of features and a visual catalog of components. See below for a more comprehensive tutorial on Swing.
• Deployment — How to package applications and applets using JAR files, and deploy them using Java Web Start and Java Plug-in.

Creating Graphical User Interfaces

This trail is available in book form as The JFC Swing Tutorial. To buy this book, refer to the box to the right.

• Creating a GUI with JFC/Swing — A comprehensive introduction to GUI creation on the Java platform.

Specialized Trails and Lessons

These trails and lessons are only available as web pages. Note that some of this material is currently undergoing revision.

• Custom Networking — An introduction to the Java platform's powerful networking features.
• The Extension Mechanism — How to make custom APIs available to all applications running on the Java platform.
• Full-Screen Exclusive Mode API — How to write applications that more fully utilize the user's graphics hardware.
• Generics — An enhancement to the type system that supports operations on objects of various types while providing compile-time type safety. Note that this lesson is for advanced users. The Java Language trail contains a Generics lesson that is suitable for beginners.
• Internationalization — An introduction to designing software so that it can be easily be adapted (localized) to various languages and regions.
• JavaBeans — The Java platform's component technology.
• JDBC Database Access — Introduces an API for connectivity between the Java applications and a wide range of databases and a data sources.
• RMI — The Remote Method Invocation API allows allows an object to invoke methods of an object running on another Java Virtual Machine.
• Reflection — An API that represents ("reflects") the classes, interfaces, and objects in the current Java Virtual Machine.
• Security — Java platform features that help protect applications from malicious software.
• Sound — An API for playing sound data from applications.
• 2D Graphics — How to display and print 2D graphics in applications.

Last update: August 3, 2006. The Java Tutorials are protected by copyright and may not be published in other works without express written permission from Sun Microsystems. Unless otherwise licensed, all code herein is provided under this License. Copyright 1995-2006 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved.