Teaching GUI Design and Event Handling Using Patterns

Graphical User Interface (GUI) has become a common way to build and deploy desk-top software in introductory computer science courses. Students definitely enjoy building GUI programs as opposed to command-line programs. Writing a GUI program requires a paradigm shift from sequential processing to event-driven processing. Building a GUI program involves two main activities – design of user interface and implementing appropriate event handling. There are several approaches (code patterns or styles) to building GUI programs. Introductory computer science textbooks suitable for use in CS1 and CS2 courses tend to describe and use exclusively one approach to building GUI programs. This exclusive use of one approach to teaching GUI design is not effective as it can cause confusion when students move from one course to another and expect to see only the style of GUI program they have learned before. It is important that students are progressively exposed to different styles of GUI design independent of the approach suggested and used in the textbook adopted for the course. This paper presents various approaches to GUI design and event handling using Java Swing framework along with pros and cons of each approach.