source : http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/

The Java Tutorials are practical guides for programmers who want to use the Java programming language to create applications. They include hundreds of complete, working examples, and dozens of lessons. Groups of related lessons are organized into "trails".

For the most accurate and up-to-date tutorials, please access the latest version from Sun's official website for the Java SE Tutorials (Last Updated 9/23/2009), which can be found at: http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial.

The Java Tutorials primarily describe features in Java SE 6. For best results, download JDK 6.

Please check out the new Java Tutorials Community Portal, the place to discuss the tutorials, and to share your modifications and additions to the tutorials.
What's New

Enjoy quizzes? Take a minute to answer this quiz about Java applets.
The Java Tutorials are continuously updated to keep up with changes to the Java Platform and to incorporate feedback from our readers. Some recent updates include:
A Deployment tutorial that covers a wide range of topics about the development and deployment of rich Internet applications. The Deployment tutorial contains the following lessons:
Applets
Java Web Start
Doing More With Rich Internet Applications
Deployment In-Depth
A new section in the Swing look and feel lesson showing how to use the new Nimbus look and feel.
A new Swing page describing How to Create Translucent and Shaped Windows.
A new Interfaces and Inheritance page discussing Polymorphism.
Trails Covering the Basics
These trails are available in book form as The Java Tutorial, Fourth Edition. To buy this book, refer to the box to the right.
Getting Started — An introduction to Java technology and lessons on installing Java development software and using it to create a simple program.
Learning the Java Language — Lessons describing the essential concepts and features of the Java Programming Language.
Essential Java Classes — Lessons on exceptions, basic input/output, concurrency, regular expressions, and the platform environment.
Collections — Lessons on using and extending the Java Collections Framework.
Swing — An introduction to the Swing GUI toolkit, with an overview of features and a visual catalog of components. See below for a more comprehensive tutorial on Swing.
Deployment — How to package applications and applets using JAR files, and deploy them using Java Web Start and Java Plug-in.
Preparation for Java Programming Language Certification — List of available training and tutorial resources.
Creating Graphical User Interfaces
This trail is available in book form as The JFC Swing Tutorial. To buy this book, refer to the box to the right.

The Swing examples are bundled to be open and run in NetBeans IDE. (Of course you can import the source files into any IDE that you wish.) For more information, see Running Tutorial Examples in NetBeans IDE. Each Swing lesson has a separate Examples Index — for a sample, check out the Using Swing Components Examples Index.
Creating a GUI with Swing — A comprehensive introduction to GUI creation on the Java platform.
Specialized Trails and Lessons
These trails and lessons are only available as web pages.


Custom Networking — An introduction to the Java platform's powerful networking features.
The Extension Mechanism — How to make custom APIs available to all applications running on the Java platform.
Full-Screen Exclusive Mode API — How to write applications that more fully utilize the user's graphics hardware.
Generics — An enhancement to the type system that supports operations on objects of various types while providing compile-time type safety. Note that this lesson is for advanced users. The Java Language trail contains a Generics lesson that is suitable for beginners.
Internationalization — An introduction to designing software so that it can be easily be adapted (localized) to various languages and regions.
JavaBeans — The Java platform's component technology.
JDBC Database Access — Introduces an API for connectivity between the Java applications and a wide range of databases and a data sources.
JMX— Java Management Extensions provides a standard way of managing resources such as applications, devices, and services.
JNDI— Java Naming and Directory Interface enables accessing the Naming and Directory Service such as DNS and LDAP.
RMI — The Remote Method Invocation API allows an object to invoke methods of an object running on another Java Virtual Machine.
Reflection — An API that represents ("reflects") the classes, interfaces, and objects in the current Java Virtual Machine.
Security — Java platform features that help protect applications from malicious software.
Sound — An API for playing sound data from applications.
2D Graphics — How to display and print 2D graphics in applications.
Sockets Direct Protocol — How to enable the Sockets Direct Protocol to take advantage of InfiniBand.