The class library that provides the standard API for building GUIs for Java programs. The Abstract Window Toolkit (AWT) includes imaging tools, data transfer classes, GUI components, containers for GUI components, an event system for handling user and system events among parts of the AWT, and layout managers for managing the size and position of GUI components in platform-independent designs. (The GUI components in the AWT are implemented as native-platform versions of the components, and they have largely been supplanted by the Swing components.) See also Java Foundation Classes, Swing classes.
The Abstract Window Toolkit (AWT) is Java's original platform-independent windowing, graphics, and user-interface widget toolkit. The AWT is now part of the Java Foundation Classes (JFC) — the standard API for providing a graphical user interface (GUI) for a Java program.