Detour: Creating UI Components in Java

Prior to creating a custom tab plugin, let's first go over a few UI components in Java, including Container, Panel, Window, and Frame

Java AWT

Java AWT (Abstract Window Toolkit) is an API to develop GUI or window-based applications in Java.

Java AWT components are platform-dependent, meaning components are displayed according to the view of the operating system. AWT is heavyweight, in that its components use the resources of the operating system.

The java.awt package provides classes for AWT API such as TextField, Label, TextArea, RadioButton, CheckBox, Choice, and List.

AWT is the foundation upon which Swing is made, and Swing is an improved GUI API that extends the AWT. Nowadays, AWT is used because most GUI Java programs are implemented using Swing due to its rich GUI controls and light-weight nature.

Java AWT Hierarchy

The hierarchy of Java AWT classes is given below.

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