Eclipse WTP.

The Eclipse IDE is an excellent open source software environment for Java development. It supports syntax-driven features such as refactoring, reference and declaration finding, method name auto-completion, and inline javadoc referencing. The Web Tools Platform adds more tools for working with web content.

Java SDK, Standard Edition.

Includes links to all relevant documents for development tools, api, core technologies, and platform architecture.

Learning the Java Language.

A subsection of The Java Tutorial which focuses on core language concepts; object oriented programming concepts, language syntax, control flow, object lifecycle, and basic data types are covered in detail with plenty of examples.

How to Write Doc Comments for the Javadoc Tool.

JavaDoc comments are comments intended to be extracted from source code, to provide API documentation. The javadoc tool does this. For example, the Java API documentation (see below) is generated in this way. You also need to use JavaDoc to document your own programs. This document discusses aesthetic and functional approaches to writing JavaDoc comments. It also describes all the special syntax involved.

Essential Java Classes.

Coveres core Java class libraries including I/O operations, threads and error handling.

Amy Fowler Swing Architecture Overview.

A must read article that explains how Swing works, it covers Swing design goals, separable model architecture, and pluggable look and feel.

The Java Swing Tutorial.

The best place to start learning about Graphical User Interface Programming with Java. It provides lots of great information illustrated with easy to follow examples and nice pictures.

Visual Index to Swing Components.

Pictures of all the swing components in action, each picture links to documentation and examples dealing with that component.

Visual Guide to Layout Managers.

This is similar to the visual guide to swing components, but instead shows examples of how the various layout managers work.

Tutorial: Writing Event Handlers.

Covers, in great detail, how to write event listeners and provides information on all the events various components can generate.

To generate a "test certificate," use the command:

keytool -genkey -alias "my_name" -keypass "my_password"

To sign your jar, use the command:

jarsigner my_project.jar my_name