In the initial releases of Swing 1.1 and Java 1.2, the JLabel, JButton, and related classes that display textual labels can display only a single line of text using a single font. In Swing 1.1.1 and Java 1.2.2, however, components like these can display multiline, multifont text using simple HTML formatting. To display formatted text, simply specify a string of HTML text that begins with an <HTML> tag. You can use this feature to present text using multiple fonts, font styles, and colors. Just as important, however, the introduction of HTML allows you to specify multiline labels.
This new formatted text display feature is available in Java 1.2.2 for the JLabel, JButton, MenuItem, JMenu, JCheckBoxMenuItem, JRadioButtonMenuItem, JTabbedPane, and JToolTip classes. It is not supported (at least in Java 1.2.2) by JCheckBox or JRadioButton, however. Formatted text display is particularly useful with JOptionPane dialog boxes (described later in this chapter), as they display text using internal JLabel objects.
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| 3.1. Versions of Swing |  | 3.3. Actions |
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