Figuring out what went wrong: All of a sudden it seems as if everyone is talking about exceptions. Recent featured articles on java.net have recommended everything from using them in a fine grained way to turning to a scripting language when you just need to get something done and don't want to worry about types or exceptions. » Read more

All things Blinky: Petting your dog from afar. — James Todd

Swing Hack 4: The universal right click: Joshua follows up on a request and showshow to handle right clicks on anything. — Joshua Marinacci

Beware the dangers of generic exceptions
Paul Philion identifies three basic problems in working with exceptions. The advice he gives in his JavaWorld piece Beware the dangers of generic exceptions is (1) Don't ignore exceptions, (2) Don't catch generic exceptions, and (3) Don't throw generic exceptions. Paul gives practical examples of the dangers of each of these practices.

SpringLayout Manager
Tired or wrestling with the GridBag layout? In John Zukowski's latest developerWorks article he features the SpringLayout Manager . The article shows you how to place components with their springs attached or add them later using the putConstraint() method. Although simpler to use than GridBag, there are complexities and repetitive tasks that John point out.