Custom Swing "Tabbed Pane" - java

I'm trying to build a custom UI to practice my interface development.
What I would like to do is create a 'sidebar' on a JFrame, which acts as a tabbed pane for a number of JPanels that I would like to be able to switch between.
Currently, I have a 'sidebar' consisting of a number of buttons, and through clicking a button - I would 'hide' one panel, and 'swap in' another (although I am yet unsure of how best to do this). The panels I am creating are the same size, but I do not know how to swap a panel in one position on my UI with another panel, in that same position.
As a result of this I have researched tabbed panes, and these seem like they could be perfect for what I'm trying to implement. I know I can set each pane to display my own JPanel, but I would like the actual tabs to be represented by the custom buttons I have made.
Is this possible with the JTabbedPane class? Or should I continue figuring out how to swap in and out my panels using the button action listener?

Related

Open elements and struct of jFrame in another like a menu

i have 5 jFrames in my java project. And i want to make like a Main Menu.
I mean, i want that the program starts with a jFrame and when i click a button insteand of open the jFrame, all the elements like labels, buttons and tables are being shown in my principal jFrame.
And if i click other button the main frame will clean and charge other jframe.
It is possible? im programming with java jdk 8 and netbeans.
Thanks
Edit:
I think who marked duplicate didn't understand my question. I don't want to open or close the frame, or other frames, I want to load the structure and components of several in the same frame. Please read my question before you start complain that is duplicated
i have 5 jFrames in my java project.
And that's a problem.
And i want to make like a Main Menu. I mean, i want that the program starts with a jFrame and when i click a button insteand of open the jFrame, all the elements like labels, buttons and tables are being shown in my principal jFrame. And if i click other button the main frame will clean and charge other jframe.
Yes this can be solved by getting the contentPane (usually a JPanel) from the JFrame whose content you want to display within the currently displayed JFrame, and making it the contentPane of the displayed JFrame, for example:
// create the new JFrame, the one whose content you wish to display
NewJFrame newJFrame = new NewJFrame();
// get its contentPane
Container newContentPane = newJFrame.getContentPane();
// add this content pane into the displayed JFrame
displayedJFrame.setContentPane(newContentPane);
// revalidate and repaint the JFrame so that its new data is well displayed
displayedJFrame.revalidate();
displayedJFrame.repaint();
// displayedJFrame.pack(); // and you might need to do this if sizes are way off
But this extra gymnastics is bulky, prone to bugs and unnecessary. You are painting yourself in a corner by having your class extend JFrame, forcing you to create and display JFrames, when often more flexibility is called for. In fact, I would venture that most of the Swing GUI code that I've created and that I've seen does not extend JFrame, and in fact it is rare that you'll ever want to do this. More commonly your GUI classes will be geared towards creating JPanels, which can then be placed into JFrames or JDialogs, or JTabbedPanes, or swapped via CardLayouts, wherever needed. This will greatly increase the flexibility of your GUI coding.
For this situation what I recommend is that you do that, that your GUI classes create JPanels, and that you add the ones that you want to swap to a JPanel that uses a CardLayout. And then whenever you want to show a different "card", call show(...) on the CardLayout object, passing in the JPanel that uses it, as well as the String key that was used when adding the "card" JPanel to the CardLayout-using JPanel. This is all well-explained in the CardLayout Tutorials.
Other useful links:
For rationale on why to avoid manually swapping please see: What's so special about CardLayout vs manual adding/removal of JPanels?
For using a CardLayout to help control a "multi-page" application with multiple classes, please see: How to Integrate Multi-page Java Desktop Application from Multiple GUI Classes

Revamp Panel Based UI to JTabbed Panes

I have developed a simple music player in Java which can play any given playlist or simple mp3 song.
For now i have worked all things out in plain JPanels. GUI doesn't look neat.
I need to revamp the GUI using tabbed pane. How this can be achieved using existing JPanels without affecting current functionality?
Also, i am not able to figure out shall i go for Tabbed Pane or Card Layout?
http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/uiswing/layout/card.html
Because a tabbed pane provides its own GUI, using a tabbed pane is simpler than using the CardLayout class.
"Also, i am not able to figure out shall i go for Tabbed Pane or Card Layout?"
It really depends on your preference of the look of your program. The two layouts perform very similarly, though CardLayout is a little bit more code, though at all not difficult. If you don't want the tab look, which I don't see why you would, for a game, then go with CardLayout
"How this can be achieved using existing JPanels without affecting current functionality? "
You need to create separate JPanel for each containment of whatever components you want in each tab. Then just add those JPanel to the JTabbedPane. It shouldn't break any functionality, just the look. Components from another panel should not be affected, you just won't be able to see any changes made, unless that other panel is in view.
If you want to go with CardLayout you can look at the tutorial

Making multiple frames in a single program

I always wondered on how can I make a program with multiple JFrames. I mean I just want one class to handle all the GUIs and stuff but how can I effectively do this? A lot of tutorials say that we make JFrame by inheriting from JFrame. But what If I want many frames?
Ex:
Title of Application in one frame with some options
Menu is one frame
Main working application is one frame
Like in a game.
But I am not sure if I am pertaining to JPanel? I am completely puzzled with the 2. I just want one un-moving frame but basically the content of the frame is changing.
When I click START for example, it will change to the gaming style of frame.
you are looking for a JFrame with a CardLayout. Some background:
A JFrame is the physical window. It comes with a title bar and three buttons: minimize, maximize, and close. Think of this as a picture frame.
A JPanel is a "content holder" of sorts. Typically, you put your other components (buttons, animations, whatever) on a JPanel, and then slap that JPanel into a JFrame. Using our picture frame example, a JPanel would be the photo paper you put in the picture frame. The other components would then be the actual contents of the picture itself, and what you have at the end is a nice picture...or in your case, an application.
Setting the JFrame to utilize a CardLayout essentially lets you have multiple JPanels inside the same JFrame at once, while still only showing one at a time. So for your application, you would have (at least) two JPanels: one for the menu, and one for the game. When the app starts, you show the MenuPanel. When the user clicks "start", you switch to the GamePanel. The MenuPanel will be put in the background and will be inaccessible until you call it to the foreground again.
If, on the other hand, you create multiple JFrames, you will have two or more physically separate windows that can be dealt with individually. This can actually be kind of cool for game development. Although it takes more time to build and link the GUI for the second window, you can then have that window affect game settings in realtime (rate of fire, bullet strength, player speed, etc.)
I think that what you are after is the Card Layout:
A CardLayout object is a layout manager for a container. It treats
each component in the container as a card. Only one card is visible at
a time, and the container acts as a stack of cards. The first
component added to a CardLayout object is the visible component when
the container is first displayed.
You can see how it is used here.
This layout manager allows you to manage situations where your frame needs to be shared across various functions. In your case for instance, you could have a functionality to handle the settings section of the game and another one to handle the actual game itself.
You could then use the manager to switch between these particular items.
you can also use Desktopane() and InternalFrame() for multiple frame.
Internalframe quite similar to Jframe but it need to setVisible(true) or show() everytime.
Which ever IDE you are using, you can create multiple JFrames in the same package, and have separate codes for each of them.
If you want to link each frame, you will have to create instances from each JFrame. for example, if when the button is pressed, we need to invoke a new Frame (that we have already created)
NewJFrame1 frame1=new NewJFrame1();
frame1.setVisible(true);
then you can decide what to with your current JFrame.
eg : (Hide, Close)

Assigning a different (new) JPanel to a JTabbedPane at run time

I have a JTabbedPane (say myTabPane) having one tab (lets take only one tab for clarity sake). While creating the JTabbedPane, I added a JPanel (say panel_A) to this tab. I have a button on this JPanel. The tab displays my JPanel perfectly with the button on it. So far so good.
I have defined a listener on the button which creates an instance (say panel_B) of another class extending JPanel. This JPanel has got a different set of components on it. I want panel_B to super-impose panel_A. That is, JTabbedPane's tab should show panel_B and hide panel_A.
Please note that I am able to display panel_A OR panel_B when I "bind" the respective panel (one of them) to the tab during creation of the JTabbedPane. However, I want a selective display (or binding, whichever is possible) of only one of the panels with a button-click (ie. at runtime).
How can this be achieved?
Thank you!
This will do what you need:
myTabPane.removeTabAt(0);
myTabPane.addTab("B", panelB);

JFrame in a Java desktop application

I am developing a desktop Java application with GUI implemented through Swing. I have made a JFrame and have added three buttons on it - Add, Edit, Delete.
Now I want that whenever a user clicks on any of the button, the content specific to that button appears besides those three buttons.
So how to implement this? Should I need to add a JPanel besides those three buttons and then add the content specific to the button to that JPanel?
So far, I have taken a JFrame and have added 3 buttons on it. That's it.
For the Add button, I want to add some buttons and textfields to add information to the database.
For the Delete button, I want to add some buttons to find records in the database based on the information entered through the user in the textfield that appears when the user clicks on the Delete button.
Similar type of content for Edit button.
So how to implement this. Should I need to add a JPanel besides those three buttons and then add the content specific to the button to that JPane
That would be fine. When you push the button, you can call JPanel.removeAll() to remove all the controls currently in the control, and then just do the layout again, specific to whatever button you pushed.
If you have custom swing controls, just add your custom control the JPanel using a BorderLayout and putting in the center.
Another option would be to use a CardLayout, and flipping between the cards when a user presses one of the buttons. If the layouts for the buttons never change, that would probably be a better way to do it. Obviously if the content changes between button presses, you'll need to redo the layout each time.
Either of Chad's or Alex's answers would be fine. You will probably need to call a combination of revalidate() and repaint() on the panel that you've changed, as in the past I've noticed Swing doesn't always like panels being swapped out.
Also, have you considered using a JTabbedPane instead of manually coding the interaction with the add/edit/delete buttons?
I haven't done a lot of Java programming, but I think using 2-3 different JPanel, and make visible the one you need depending on the button that was clicked would do the trick.
I'm not sure if this is the right approach though.
I was using a JFrame to add all buttons and make a new JFrame for a new window and hide a previous one.
gven way are better. I will do that now.

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