Convert JDialog to JPanel in Netbeans - java

I spent a long time creating a nice Dialog using Netbeans (Matisse), and now I realise that I want it as JPanel instead.
Is there any way of converting the Dialog to Panel in Netbeans. The blasted GUI editor does not allow me to modify any of the code.

Just open navigator in design mode in jdialog, copy components and paste in jpanel view.
Like in below image.
As always #MadProgrammer recommends, if you don't add directly to the jdialog and instead of a custom container (like a jpanel), then it's easy to put in another components :D

You can play a trick on Netbeans to convert it, with all your code:
Assuming your dialog class is called MyDialog:
In Netbeans UI Editor, create a new empty JPanel form (say, e.g.
MyDialogPanel), and save it.
Quit Netbeans, and open your favorite
file browser, navigate to the folder where your classes reside. You
will find MyDialog.java and MyDialog.from - as well as
MyDialogPanel.java and .form.
Now open MyDialog.java, and replace JDialog by JPanel in the class definition, and save as MyDialogPanel.java (overwriting the empty panel you have created).
Now open MyDialog.form, replace
JDialogFormInfo by JPanelFormInfo, and save as
MyDialogPanel.form (overwriting the empty panel you have created).
Open Netbeans, and open MyDialogPanel. The UI editor will be suprised and probably hickup a warning. Choose to allow editing, and save the dialog. Now look through your code, you probably need to fix a few things (like usages of getContentPane() or dispose() or the like, which are not there in a JPanel. After that, voila! Everything there, in your JPanel!

Ah. Figured it out. Just need to create a JPanel Netbeans class. Then I can just copy and paste the components across from the JDialog by going into the navigator view.

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

How to create dynamic wizard?

I am making project with GUI. The thing is, that I have a button and what I need to do is that after clicking this button I need to change Frame layout. For example, like when you are installing some program and you click "next" button, the Frame layout changes and you can see some different content. Basicly, dynamic wizard.
I have tried use another Frame, but it opens in another window and that is not what I want. I want to open it in the same window.
Another thing I have tried is set visibility of these components I don't want to be displayed to false, but I find it unprofessional and it is overlook in making a desing, when I have components over themselfs.
So do you guys have any idea? Thank you.
Most of the times for a wizard like GUI, you should have JFrame and a set of JPanels. In each step you can pass the shared data as constructor arguments to each panel, and when you are making one of them invisible and make another one visible, you can get some date from the previous step panel and pass it to the next step panel(if needed).
It is very common that your panels extend the JPanel and have some argument in their constructor(s). You use these data for initializing your panel and managing the state of the overall progress.
There is no a total plan for all situations. So you should decide what to do which is best fit for your case.
Try not to have multiple JFrames.
Hope this would be helpful.

Small Window Over Components

I already look at java library and dont know what to use to do this..
I already tryed JInternalFrame but thats not what I really want.. because it needs to be added to a JDesktopPanel right??
And in my program I have a JFrame with content pane using BorderLayout..
Then on borderlayout center I have a JTextArea, on borderlayout east I have a list.. and on borderlayout south I have a JPanel..
What I want is, when I do a certain action, it will pop up a "mini window" where I need to choose something.. u see?
and if I create JDesktopLane it will overlap what I have on the container..
the window will be made by my like a color chooser pallete , like a grid with colors.. and a label on top saying some text..
I just dont know how to make a "window" over the other components, and users can still drag over the frame, and interact with all the other components.. the jtextarea and such..
I guess you understood, thanks alot in advance!!
If u dont understand something please tell me, I really want to do this :)
Just dont know what to use..
Thanks again ;)
Have you tried JDialog?
It's because Jdialog are not component to be add in a JFrame, it's an independant thing running on it's own
if you use JDialog, the construct parameter parent indicate wich frame the JDialog is related to.
The typical class for this task is JWindow, a borderless top-level window that can be freely positioned. You could use SwingUtilities.getPointFromComponent to get the screen coordinates for a realized coordinate.
Top-level windows (JFrame, JDialog, JWindow) are not added to containers. They can get other windows as parent.
I dont want to use another JFrame.. that is kinda bad for code, its a small window with a simple function..
Structure your code so you can read it, others can read it, and you can debug it easily (the latter is a result from the first). A low class count is useless and -most of the time- contraproductive.
Why should another JFrame (or other window) be bad?
If you absolutely want to avoid opening top level windows (e.g. to avoid applet warning icons or to implement a special kind of user interface) you could use a JLayeredPane to add additional JPanels above your existing GUI elements.

Eclipse Visual Editor: Components not shown in JTabbedPane

I want to create a JTabbedPane in a Visual Class using the Visual Editor in Eclipse.
I selected JTabbedPane from the beans menu on the toolbar.
I next clicked on the class to drop it in. So far, no problems.
But wait, no tabs are showing up.
The tutorials on the web say to drop a component into the TabbedPane and the tabs will show up. I dropped a JLabel and no tabs showed up.
Deleted the JLabel using the design window. Dragged a JTextPane, still no tabs.
I drag a JTextfield, onto the TabbedPane (without deleting the JTextPane), still no tabs showing.
I set the "tabs_text" properties of the JTextField and the JTextPane. Still no tabs show up.
Also, the components are not showing on the TabbedPane. It's like a gray whole that just swallows things and no images are reflected back.
Anybody have a step by step tutorial, instructions or something similar for how to put a JTabbedPane onto a Visual Class and also components into the JTabbedPane? Pictures would be very helpful.
Do I have to use NetBeans or hand-code the JTabbedPane?
Note: I'm trying to create a tabbed pane (or notebook in other GUI terminology) with one tab for person's address and another tab for phone numbers.
You should be able to create a JTabbedPane with the editor. But since you asked:
Do I have to use NetBeans or hand-code the JTabbedPane?
I will answer that with no you don't. But I would very highly recommend hand-coding the entire GUI. Visual Builders are nice for prototypes but produce much pain and bloodshed for those who have to maintain the code. Once you get past the Swing learning curve, you will find that Builders only limit your ability.
The TabbedPanel is showing up. Here's what I did:
I created a separate class,
Residence, derived from JPanel. Added
all the labels and fields.
Modified the addTab statement to
add the new panel.
Changed the add method to use 2
parameters, not 4.
Removed all "ve" comments, placed in
the code by the Visual Editor.
I don't know which, any or if all of the above was necessary, but that is what I did and now the TabbedPane is showing in the Visual Editor.
Looks like the Visual Editor may be more useful to show what the form looks like rather than as a tool to build them.

Netbeanw does not refresh JPanel after adding new components

this title may not best describe my problem. I'm using Netbean GUI builder to create a JFrame and several JPanels. I create each JPanel in a seperate class, then I drag the JPanel class to JFrame. The problem is after dragging the JPanel to JFrame, if I add components to JPanel, it does not show the additional components in the JPanel contained in JFrame. I tried "clean and build" but the new component still not showing in JFrame -> JPanel.
Matisse keeps a cached copy of any component you add to the palette. So, subsequent changes are not automatically picked up. To pick up the changes:
save and close your JFrame source
Make sure the JPanel component is compiled.
Click Tools > Palette > Swing/AWT Components
Right click on the tree and choose Refresh
Open your JFrame component. It should now be showing the updated components
I know what you mean; Matisse (NetBeans' GUI editor) lets you drag and drop self-assembled Containers (e.g. JPanels) into other Containers (e.g. JFrames), but any subsequent changes in the former will not be reflected in the latter. As far as I know, that's just the way it works, unfortunately.
It's one of the reasons I think Matisse can only be used for quick prototyping and toying around. For anything serious, the GUI must be hand-coded.
Had the same problem, all you have to do is:
1) re-compile the new JPanel subcomponent
2) close the form associated with the parent JPanel
3) re-open the parent Jpanel again from the Project tree
The refreshed subpanel should now be shown. Matisse only renders the subpanel when you either open a form or add the new subpanel. So, the only way to refresh the display without removing and re-adding the subpanel is to close and reopen it.

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