my question is could be very basic in terms of understanding this simple code. I wrote this code myself grabbing bits of code from here and there to understand. I would like to actually follow this code line by line as to what each line means?
I have added my understanding as comments above the line of code, it could be wrong or some of them marked as **** means I just dont know what it means. If you could help me out here, it will be great.
Thanks
import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.GridLayout;
import java.text.ParseException;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.JTextField;
public class TestingSwingComponents {
public TestingSwingComponents() {
//Create a frame which is the window that pops up
JFrame myframe = new JFrame();
//*****
myframe.getContentPane().setLayout(new BorderLayout());
//set the frame size to be 600 X 600 size
myframe.setSize(600, 600);
// create Pane1
JPanel myPanel = new JPanel();
//set the Layout component of Panel, as how you would like it to be
//here it is 2 rows and 15 columns
myPanel.setLayout(new GridLayout(2, 15));
//create a button with text in it
JButton letterButton = new JButton("click Me");
//add the created button component to the panel
myPanel.add(letterButton);
//******
myframe.getContentPane().add(myPanel, BorderLayout.SOUTH);
// create another panel
JPanel panelFormat = new JPanel();
//create a textfield
JTextField txtfield = new JTextField();
//create a label for the textfield
JLabel label = new JLabel("Guesss");
//set the layout type for this panel
panelFormat.setLayout(new BorderLayout());
//add label to panel
panelFormat.add(label);
//add textfield to panel
panelFormat.add(txtfield);
//I dont know the difference between the below two
//BorderLayout.CENTER still does not center the panel in the frame, I dont know why
myframe.getContentPane().add(panelFormat, BorderLayout.CENTER);
myframe.add(panelFormat);
// default settings
myframe.setTitle("Get buttons");
myframe.setVisible(true);
myframe.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
myframe.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
}
public static void main(String[] args) throws ParseException {
new TestingSwingComponents();
}
}
myframe.getContentPane().setLayout(new BorderLayout());
To answer this, you need to understand the structure of a Swing window. A JFrame (in fact any Swing window) is made up a series of components which generate the view of the window.
(Picture from How to use Root Panes)
A JRootPane makes up the base of view, on-top of which is a JLayeredPane and what is know as the "glass pane". The JLayeredPane is responsible for managing the JMenuBar and the "content pane".
The content pane is where you components reside on the window.
So, what this line is saying is, "get the frame's content pane and set it's layout to use a BorderLayout"
The layouts API is an entire question on it's own and it would be use to you to have a read through Laying out components within a container for a more indeepth description, but basically, layout managers remove the need for you to care (a greate deal) about differences in rendering techniques employeed by different systems...
//******
myframe.getContentPane().add(myPanel, BorderLayout.SOUTH);
This comes back to the layout manager. Because you can have any number of layout managers, Swing allows you to pass a "constraint" to the layout manager when you add the component, giving the layout manager some idea of how you might like this component to be added.
If you take a closer look at BorderLayout you will see that it has five positions in which components can be added.
The line is basically saying, "please add myPanel to the SOUTH position within the frame/content pane"
Update from comments
If you have a look at this snippet...
panelFormat.setLayout(new BorderLayout());
//add label to panel
panelFormat.add(label);
//add textfield to panel
panelFormat.add(txtfield);
It sets the layout manager for panelFormat to BorderLayout. BorderLayout can only have a single component in any of it's five available positions. When you use add(Component) without passing it a layout constraint, BorderLayout use CENTER as the default position, this means you are trying to add two components to the CENTER position, this is not possible, so BorderLayout simply uses the last component that was added.
why not borderlayout fix the size of textfield instead of stretching
it all window
Because this is how BorderLayout works and no, GridLayout would probably do something simular.
You could try FlowLayout or GridBagLayout
Updated from comments
You seriously need to take the time to read through the linked (and other suggested) tutorials...but basically, you can use a GridBagLayout just like any other layout, you create an instance of it and apply it to the container...
// create another panel
JPanel panelFormat = new JPanel();
//create a textfield
JTextField txtfield = new JTextField(10);
//create a label for the textfield
JLabel label = new JLabel("Guesss");
//set the layout type for this panel
panelFormat.setLayout(new GridBagLayout());
//add label to panel
panelFormat.add(label);
//add textfield to panel
panelFormat.add(txtfield);
//I dont know the difference between the below two
//BorderLayout.CENTER still does not center the panel in the frame, I dont know why
myframe.getContentPane().add(panelFormat, BorderLayout.CENTER);
myframe.add(panelFormat);
A Swing top-level container, including a JFrame, JDialog is composed of several components all held together including a JRootPane which holds all together, a JLayeredPane, and a contentPane the latter of which holds most of the GUI excepting the top window bar. You can read more about the details in this tutorial here: Top Level Containers:
So when you add a component to a JFrame in a default way, you're actually adding it to its contentPane. In other words, this:
myJFrame.add(myComponent);
is functionally the same as this:
myJFrame.getContentPane().add(myComponent);
For learning Swing, I used this great tutorial which goes over everything you have, and explains it pretty clearly in depth.
The tutorial also goes over the elements that you are having trouble understanding.
Here is said tutorial.
Related
I tryed to learn about GUI and tryed to create the window with two buttons and jne Label on the screen. But I don't understand why I can't see these elements simultaneously. When I comment out lines for buttons I can see the Label element.
Here is my code:
import java.awt.*;
import javax.swing.*;
public class MyWin {
public static void main(String[] args) {
JFrame w = new JFrame("My Window");
w.setSize(1000,800);
w.setVisible(true);
JButton b = new JButton("My button");
b.setVisible(true);
b.setSize(150, 100);
b.setLocation(500, 20);
JButton b2 = new JButton("Second button");
b2.setVisible(true);
b2.setSize(150,100);
b2.setLocation(500, 600);
JLabel l = new JLabel("My label");
l.setVisible(true);
w.getContentPane().add(b);
w.getContentPane().add(b2);
w.getContentPane().add(l);
}
}
The default layout for the JFrame is BorderLayout and when you add your JLabel through single parameter add method you add it with a BorderLayour.CENTER constraint as a default, this causes to fill all the available space. So you might want to use layout manager suitable for your needs, then the components won't overlay themselves.
Visual Guide to Layour Managers
First of all, JFrame uses BorderLayout as a default layout and just adding the components (w.getContentPane().add(b)) sets them in BorderLayout.CENTER; where they occupy the whole JFrame to fill the empty space. Thus, is recommended to add components in a JPanel. So, you should create first a JPanel, add the components to the JPanel and finally add it to the JFrame.
The setSize(...); statement is not applied due to the default layout (FlowLayout) in JPanels and also is discouraged. (Because it won't work properly in different computers with different screen resolutions)
If you want to change the size of the components you should change the default layout and use instead a customLayout, borderLayout, gridLayout...
If you want to understand deeply how layouts work and all the available layouts in Java check this
I want to add two jPanels to a JFrame side by side. the two boxes are jpanels and the outer box is a jframe
I have these lines of code. I have one class called seatinPanel that extends JPanel and inside this class I have a constructor and one method called utilityButtons that return a JPanel object. I want the utilityButtons JPanel to be on the right side. the code I have here only displays the utillityButtons JPanel when it runs.
public guiCreator()
{
setTitle("Passenger Seats");
//setSize(500, 600);
setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
Container contentPane = getContentPane();
seatingPanel seatingPanel1 = new seatingPanel();//need to declare it here separately so we can add the utilityButtons
contentPane.add(seatingPanel1); //adding the seats
contentPane.add(seatingPanel1.utilityButtons());//adding the utility buttons
pack();//Causes this Window to be sized to fit the preferred size and layouts of its subcomponents
setVisible(true);
}
The most flexible LayoutManager I would recommend is BoxLayout.
You can do the following :
JPanel container = new JPanel();
container.setLayout(new BoxLayout(container, BoxLayout.X_AXIS));
JPanel panel1 = new JPanel();
JPanel panel2 = new JPanel();
//panel1.set[Preferred/Maximum/Minimum]Size()
container.add(panel1);
container.add(panel2);
then add container to object to your frame component.
You need to read up on and learn about the layout managers that Swing has to offer. In your situation it will help to know that a JFrame's contentPane uses BorderLayout by default and you can add your larger center JPanel BorderLayout.CENTER and the other JPanel BorderLayout.EAST. More can be found here: Laying out Components in a Container
Edit 1
Andrew Thompson has already shown you a bit on layout managers in his code in your previous post here: why are my buttons not showing up?. Again, please read the tutorial to understand them better.
I have been trying to code a basic IDE for my programming language but I have not had much experience with JFrames. I am trying to set it up so that the window has a main header and then two text areas below it. I can get the header all sorted out; it's just 3 labels centered in the window. But I cannot get the two text areas to work. I have only tried one so far and I am already seeing loads of stuff wrong. Whenever I resize the window, it doesn't stay beneath the header (which is a Box Layout), but it goes beside it. I also want to make it so that the text areas increase in size when the window changes size. Here is the code that I have so far (this only has one text area).
JFrame frame = new JFrame("DotDotIO");
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
frame.setLayout(new FlowLayout());
frame.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(800,600));
frame.setMinimumSize(new Dimension(600,450));
Box titleText = Box.createHorizontalBox();
JLabel title = new JLabel("<html><span style='color: teal;'>DotDotIO</span></html>");
title.setFont (title.getFont().deriveFont(64.0f));
JLabel version = new JLabel("<html> Version 1.0<br>Created by Luke Carr</html>");
JLabel slogan = new JLabel("<html>Full Potential<br>Minimal Knowledge</html>");
titleText.add(version);
titleText.add(title);
titleText.add(slogan);
titleText.setAlignmentX(frame.getWidth() / 2);
Box inputContent = Box.createHorizontalBox();
JTextArea code = new JTextArea(35,65);
code.setEditable(true);
code.setBorder(null);
inputContent.add(code);
frame.add(titleText);
frame.add(inputContent);
frame.pack();
frame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
frame.setVisible(true);
I currently have it setup so that the text area has a fixed size, but I would like it setup so that the left text area has a width of 65% of the screen, and the right text area takes up 15% of the screen, with 5% margin either side and 5% margin in between both. One final note is that the way my language currently interprets the code is through a file, and then it loops through each line. How would I be able to do this with all of the code typed in the text area on the left?
Currently what I have:
Sorry for asking so many questions. Although I have been doing Java for quite a long time, JFrames have never really come up and I am very new to them.
A box layout doesn't offer much flexibility when it comes to re-sizing the components. This is a link to a similar question. You might want to try a different layout manager.
BoxLayout stretches component to fit parent panel
I would consider using a BorderLayout, and working with Insets of the inner panels. This would give you a full Frame, where you can specify a percentage or fixed pixel amount around the text areas, so no matter what size the window is, the layout adjusts itself to an appropriate distance.
You should probably first put everything into a JPanel and add that to the frame instead of directly adding everything to the frame.
JPanel mainPanel = new JPanel();
mainPanel.setLayout(new BoxLayout(mainPanel, BoxLayout.Y_AXIS))
...
frame.getContentPane().add(mainPanel);
I gave the BoxLayout an alignment of Y_AXIS so that the components will go from top to bottom. But then how do you display two headers side by side? Nest another JPanel inside mainPanel:
JPanel info = new JPanel();
info.setLayout(new FlowLayout(FlowLayout.RIGHT, 50, 10));
JLabel version = new JLabel("<html> Version 1.0<br>Created by Luke Carr</html>");
info.add(version);
JLabel slogan = new JLabel("<html>Full Potential<br>Minimal Knowledge</html>");
info.add(slogan);
mainPanel.add(info);
I set it to a FlowLayout in order to align the JLabels to the right, and so that if the width of the window is too small then Swing will automatically realign them vertically. There are many other ways of doing this, but this is the way I prefer. Aligning the components to the right gives the 65/15 proportions you wanted. If that's not what you wanted, you can change it to FlowLayout.CENTER, FlowLayout.LEFT, etc. The 50 and 10 in the FlowLayout's constructor are the vertical and horizontal spacings between components.
To create the 5% margin on either side of them, I just set the entire mainPanel's border to an empty border that extends for 10 pixels on each side
mainPanel.setBorder(BorderFactory.createEmptyBorder(10, 10, 10, 10));
If you just want a border around the version number and the slogan, set info's border the same way.
For your last question: to read the code line by line, use code.getText() and split it using String.split(), as mentioned here.
I rewrote the code and changed some settings:
import java.awt.FlowLayout;
import javax.swing.BorderFactory;
import javax.swing.Box;
import javax.swing.BoxLayout;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.JTextArea;
public class Main
{
public static void main(String[] args)
{
JFrame frame = new JFrame("DotDotIO");
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
JPanel mainPanel = new JPanel();
mainPanel.setLayout(new BoxLayout(mainPanel, BoxLayout.Y_AXIS));
mainPanel.setBorder(BorderFactory.createEmptyBorder(10, 10, 10, 10));
JPanel title = new JPanel();
JLabel header = new JLabel("<html><span style='color: teal;'>DotDotIO</span></html>");
header.setFont(header.getFont().deriveFont(64.0F));
title.add(header);
mainPanel.add(title);
mainPanel.add(Box.createVerticalStrut(10));
JPanel info = new JPanel();
info.setLayout(new FlowLayout(FlowLayout.RIGHT, 50, 10));
JLabel version = new JLabel("<html> Version 1.0<br>Created by Luke Carr</html>");
info.add(version);
JLabel slogan = new JLabel("<html>Full Potential<br>Minimal Knowledge</html>");
info.add(slogan);
mainPanel.add(info);
mainPanel.add(Box.createVerticalStrut(20));
JPanel codePanel = new JPanel();
JTextArea code = new JTextArea(25, 65);
codePanel.add(code);
mainPanel.add(codePanel);
frame.getContentPane().add(mainPanel);
frame.pack();
frame.setVisible(true);
}
}
If I misunderstood your question, please comment. I hope this helps.
--- EDIT ----------------
The way a FlowLayout works is that it places components in a particular direction until it reaches the edge of the window; then it "hits return" and the components are placed under the first row of components. That is how the two labels were aligned the way they were and are able to align vertically if the screen size is too small.
I want to add two jPanels to a JFrame side by side. the two boxes are jpanels and the outer box is a jframe
I have these lines of code. I have one class called seatinPanel that extends JPanel and inside this class I have a constructor and one method called utilityButtons that return a JPanel object. I want the utilityButtons JPanel to be on the right side. the code I have here only displays the utillityButtons JPanel when it runs.
public guiCreator()
{
setTitle("Passenger Seats");
//setSize(500, 600);
setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
Container contentPane = getContentPane();
seatingPanel seatingPanel1 = new seatingPanel();//need to declare it here separately so we can add the utilityButtons
contentPane.add(seatingPanel1); //adding the seats
contentPane.add(seatingPanel1.utilityButtons());//adding the utility buttons
pack();//Causes this Window to be sized to fit the preferred size and layouts of its subcomponents
setVisible(true);
}
The most flexible LayoutManager I would recommend is BoxLayout.
You can do the following :
JPanel container = new JPanel();
container.setLayout(new BoxLayout(container, BoxLayout.X_AXIS));
JPanel panel1 = new JPanel();
JPanel panel2 = new JPanel();
//panel1.set[Preferred/Maximum/Minimum]Size()
container.add(panel1);
container.add(panel2);
then add container to object to your frame component.
You need to read up on and learn about the layout managers that Swing has to offer. In your situation it will help to know that a JFrame's contentPane uses BorderLayout by default and you can add your larger center JPanel BorderLayout.CENTER and the other JPanel BorderLayout.EAST. More can be found here: Laying out Components in a Container
Edit 1
Andrew Thompson has already shown you a bit on layout managers in his code in your previous post here: why are my buttons not showing up?. Again, please read the tutorial to understand them better.
I have a simple swing application which consists of a JLabel and three buttons. The three buttons are in their own JPanel which is in a JFrame along with the JLabel. The JPanel uses flowlayout manager to arrange the buttons horizontally and the JFrame uses the BorderLayout manager to arrange the JLabel and JPanel vertically.
My problem is when I launch the application, during the course of use the text on one of the buttons changes which increases its width. However, the window doesn't resize to accomdate this and one of the buttons disappears. I thought about calling pack() again, but the JFrame is a local variable in my constructor, also, I shouldn't have to tell my program to resize, right? I haven't been able to find anything on google or here to help me but there must be a simple solution, what am I missing? Code is below.
playButton = new JButton("Play");
pauseButton = new JButton("Pause");
stopButton = new JButton("Stop");
curTrackLabel = new JLabel("No Track Selected");
JFrame myFrame = new JFrame("MediaPlayer");
myFrame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
myFrame.setTitle("MediaPlayer");
myFrame.setLocation(400,300);
JPanel topPanel = new JPanel();
topPanel.setLayout(new BorderLayout());
myFrame.add(topPanel);
JPanel buttonPanel = new JPanel(new FlowLayout());
buttonPanel.add(playButton);
buttonPanel.add(pauseButton);
buttonPanel.add(stopButton);
topPanel.add(buttonPanel, BorderLayout.CENTER);
topPanel.add(curTrackLabel, BorderLayout.NORTH);
playButton.addActionListener(new playButtonHandler());
pauseButton.addActionListener(new pauseButtonHandler());
stopButton.addActionListener(new stopButtonHandler());
myFrame.pack();
myFrame.setVisible(true);
Maybe try
((JFrame)myButton.getTopLevelAncestor()).pack();
Where myButton is the button whose text is modified during execution.
As with learning any GUI software, experimentation is best. Try messing with BorderLayouts with nested JPanels.
Ultimately, you use JPanel with a BorderLayout (Flow Layout is OK but really when resizing the window, it epically fails). See http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/uiswing/layout/border.html to learn more about BorderLayouts.
Now for your layout scheme it should be something along the lines of:
Top Level Container: JFrame
JFrame contains a JPanel (Call this
JPanel 1) with a BorderLayout.
The three buttons should be in a
SEPARATE jPanel (JPanel 2). JPanel
1 should add the three buttons as
BorderLayout.CENTER. In this way,
the window will resize if the button
changes its width and/or hright.
The JLabel should be added as
BorderLayout.LINE_START.
The tutorial at: http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/uiswing/layout/border.html should help you with this. But in general, use the following:
Use JPanel and nest JPanels as necessary
BorderLayout.CENTER will accomodate size changes---this is the key! (Experiment with this)
JFrame should only be used as a top level container (for more complex GUIs, this is true).
If you require more flexibility, check out JGoodies: http://www.jgoodies.com/ . This is more along the lines of creating forms.