1

I'm developing a new application where I'll have some windows opened at the same time. I'm currently trying to design the GUI and I'm struggling with two choices:

  1. I could use a side navigation panel and using the center of the page to display the content of each panel. These panels would be stored according flyweight pattern and I would just hide/show them when navigation buttons are clicked (in order to save the content as is was when hidden, for example a user registration form).

  2. I could use a front page displaying the menu all over it and use popups/new windows to show the content. These could be closed/minimized etc).

My problem is: What if all the panels are stored in my flyweight pattern? will it have a huge performance hit or will it still run smoothly with like 15 JPanels stored? (of course those JPanels will have sometimes lots of content in it such as forms etc).

What do you think would be the best easy-to-use/performance choice ?

Thank you :)

Dave Schweisguth
  • 36,475
  • 10
  • 98
  • 121
Michael De Keyser
  • 787
  • 1
  • 17
  • 45

2 Answers2

4

JTable rendering already uses the flyweight pattern, so a one column table is ideal for selection. A custom renderer can display an arbitrary thumbnail representation, while a ListSelectionListener can display arbitrary detail in an adjacent container. In the TableModel, consider an LRU cache if the individual data records are consuming too much memory.

As always with performance questions, prototype and profile.

Community
  • 1
  • 1
trashgod
  • 203,806
  • 29
  • 246
  • 1,045
3

As long as you don't attempt to hold more data than fits the heap reasonably, performance will be a non-issue nowadays (unless you do something exceptionally bad you will not notice any performance difference from the user perspective).

That said, unless you have pressing reason to hold on to GUI's you currently don't need - just let them get GC'd and recreate them as needed. The create-throw-away after one use approach is more flexible when the application needs to be modified and bears less opportunities for memory leaks.

As for the GUI design aspect, many people absolutely hate popups. They can also interfere with focus management/keyboard usage. But it still depends on which kind of control flow you need. Side menu bar is fine for many purposes.

I'd like to point out that the side menu is just a fancy reinvention of Tabbed Pane (which is a standard component you wouldn't need to implement yourself). Also, if things need to be done in a specific order - a Wizard like approach can also be a good choice (one Window that changes contents with each step completed).

Durandal
  • 19,919
  • 4
  • 36
  • 70