Chapter 13

Quiz

1. What's the difference between reloading and restarting an applet?

   Reloading clears all static variables and starts over again by constructing a new instance of the applet and calling its init() method. Depending on the platform reload may or may not reload the byte code from a .class file on the disk or on the network. Restarting an applet just calls its start() method. It does not call init(), the constructor, or reload the byte codes.

Exercises

1. The typewriter applet is really very basic. Try to spruce it up enough to pass as a simple word processor. This exercise is fairly open ended. Possibilities include
   • A data structure that can handle arbitrary amounts of text
   • Break for word wrapping on spaces
   • Insert a blinking vertical bar at the position of the insertion point
   • Dynamically adjust the text flow based on the size of the window and the size of the font
   • Handle the delete key
   • Use the mouse to position the insertion point
   • An insert mode as well as the current typeover mode
   • Set the font to Courier
   • Clean up the (by now quite messy) keyDown method by breaking it up into smaller pieces. Try creating a cursor object that responds to moveLeft, moveRight, moveTo(), and other such messages.
   Don't get too wrapped up in this though. You'll see in Chapter 15 that Java does provide a TextArea class that gives you all this functionality, essentially for free.