Develop Reference

Creating set of JButtons according to retrieved database values

I'm working on a POS system for a fast food restaurant. I've developed Adding, updating and deleting products using a MySQL Database. Now I need to create the POS GUI (using SWING) which the cashier uses to create the bill. The interface I have in mind is like what MacDonald's uses, there's a set of buttons with the product images. (I have stored BLOBS of products successfully)
example image :
I have no idea on how to accomplish this, it would be awesome if its possible to generate a set of dynamic Jbuttons which gets the image of a product along with the name and price. Is this the best way to accomplish this? and how do I achieve this? A few details to put me on the correct path will be greatly appreciated!
Thanks.

You have at least four containers, the top row, the bottom row and each row containing a separate container in the middle (for the buttons).
The basic layout for the rows might be a GridLayout, each row would probably use a BorderLayout with the nav buttons in the WEST and EAST positions. CENTER container could use a GridLayout, but won't give you the look you're after. You could use a FlowLayout and even a GridBagLayout, but you'd need to ensure the size of the buttons where correct for your needs
On the left I see a JTable and two JPanels, containing the buttons, held together with a GridBagLayout.
On the right I see a JList. See How to Use Lists for more details. You'll probably also want to have a look at Concepts: Editors and Renderers and Writing a Custom Cell Renderer for details about how you could customise the look of the cells and How to Write a List Selection Listener for details about how to determine when the user changes the selection
Together, they are probably maintained by a GridBagLayout within a single container for ease of use
Along the button is probably another container using a GridBagLayout.
Altogether, they are probably held together by a GridBagLayout
Have a look at Laying Out Components Within a Container, How to Use GridBagLayout, How to Use BorderLayout and How to Use FlowLayout for more details

You will need to look into the GridLayout.
In your case, it might be a little bit more complex since you have multiple grids, some of which seem to be nested within each other.
You should be able to allocate the grid dynamically and then leave it to the layout manager to distribute things evenly over the page.
Depending on the complexity of your layout, it might also be a good idea to look into the GridPane provided by JavaFX.

Hi I look for you this problem and I find this solution ;
http://www.javasrilankansupport.com/2012/06/create-dynamic-jbutton-with-image-and.html

Eclipse Plugin - TreeViewer display large amount of Text

I am currently writing on a Plugin that uses a view with a TreeViewer. The thing is, as content for my Nodes I get plain HTML. I would like to display the HTML styled or, if not possible, the simple plain text without any HTML. But the issue I run into is that the TreeViewer is not displaying enough text.
As you can see the HTML is not completly displayed and that everyting is only one line is not pretty aswell. I would like to have a box or something that can display the text (doesnt matter if the box does not support the HTML-styling, I can do this from hand).
Currently I'm using a LabelProvider that is returning the Text of a Node as string (and from what I can see this is the only possible Option with a LabelProvider).
As workaround I could only think of cutting the text into serval nodes but I would like to know if there are better options out there ;)

If it's your own LabelProvider, you can truncate or manipulate the text shown however you wish. Since it ultimately ends up as a native control, you're basically stuck with text label with a single image (plus whatever IColorLabelProvider offers) as long as you're using a tree control.
You could experiment with the Figures from the GEF project or the Nebula CompositeTable as alternatives.

you can use a editor to show the content, this would be appropriate with your requirement. View can also be think for it. tableviewer clould also be least choice. TreeViewer generaly use to deal with hierarchical data.

There are several label providers available in Eclipse in the org.eclipse.jface.viewers package. You can choose to implement your own or extend one of them to choose your need.
Looking at the image, I would recommend to display only few words in the tree and the entire content of the node could be in a different pane/tool tip.

Vertical document points-of-interest highlighter component of an IDE. What's it called?

Both Eclipse an Netbeans provide a vertical points of interest highlighter next to document scroll bars, which appears to be a part of an extended JScrollPane or is simply a standalone custom component.
I've marked it on the picture below (Netbeans and Eclipse version, in that order).
It highlights lots of different things and represents a flat view of the entire document.
What is this area/component called in general?
I've been looking around on pointers on how to implement such a thing in swing or abuse an existing implementation to my liking but I don't even know what to search for. Both implementations of this thing appear to be quite similar, so I'm hoping they are based on the same piece of code.

It's an extend JScrollPane which has implemted some kind of column footer.
The default JScrollPane provides row and column headers by default, check out How to use scroll panes for more details
Try taking a look at JideScrollPane from jidesoft

Eclipse just calls these vertical rulers (they are implemented with SWT in Eclipse).

The Page Turn Effect in Java Swing/AWT

I would like to implement the page turn effect in Swing/AWT. The theory is pretty much explained here. My question is that since the page is to contain text, which is the correct swing/awt component to use? Also, to get a little deeper, how should I approach this problem? I mean I have the theory laid out before me, I know the tool I need to use, but I have never done anything like this with Swing/AWT, do I need to master all the minutiae of Swing/AWT to be able to do this?

Whatever you do, you will have to implement your own drawing routines. As the text you intend to draw is going to not share most characteristics of the text drawn with other components (it will be angled, rotating over time, and clipped at a moving visible "edge" of the page), you will also have to draw the text.
In SWING, and in all non-console programs the text is drawn to the screen as would any graphics primitive. It takes a bit of learning; especially in the details of line spacing, letter spacing, word wrapping, etc.
That means I'd consider a new swing UI component. Here's how to write custom painting for one. Depending on the details, you may want to reuse a model. Generally it is easier to only write a view than a view and a model at the same time; however, you must balance the needs of the view with the suitability of the existing model.
If you choose an existing model, the Document interface is what you should code your view against. You can take your lead from the JTextPane or JTextArea view components, depeding on if you want the ability to "add style" to your text.
Don't forget that the view actually doesn't do the painting in a well structured Swing component. If it did, then it would not be able to be skinned (to follow the platform's theme). This means that while you will provide a Swing view (typically with a name pattern like JPagedBook), that view will have to be coupled to a UIDelegate which does the actual drawing of the view. This allows multiple UIDelegates for each view, with each UIDelegate containing the instructions of how to render (draw) the view in a manner that is consistent with the look-and-feel of the platform.
The biggest issues around this is typically the extra work involved to properly support look-and-feel, and the lack of knowledge of proper UIDelegate registration (so when the view draws, it finds something that will draw it). It's worth the extra few hours (or couple of days if GUI component programming is sort of new to you) to make it work like the rest of Swing. In the end you'll have a component that doesn't feel like a "separate" part of the library.

JTree nodes' rendering and font changes

I have a problem with rendering nodes in JTree. When node's font is changed and node's text gets wider that way then node's text is cut and end of text replaced with dots.
How to tell the JTree then that it should widen area to render tho whole node.
Thank you for help

You can use custom renderer and set to the component (JLabel) something like this
final Dimension size = label.getPreferredSize();
label.setMinimumSize(size);
label.setPreferredSize(size);
or just set text like this
setText("<html>" +valueText+"</html>")

Sounds like the trigger of the font change happens under the feet of the tree: internally, the ui delegate does lots of size caching which must be updated on any change which effects the cached sizes. That's done automatically on changes to the treeModel, to relevant expansion state and some visual changes to the tree itself.
So the basic question is: what triggers the change of the font? If it's some change of the model/nodes, the model implementation is incorrect in not firing an appropriate TreeModelEvent, the obvious solution would be to fix that :-) If it's something outside the model, the solution depends on the details of your context, nothing generally applicable.

Size caching
The JTree uses a renderer to render nodes. The renderer is the same renderer for all OSs, so the differnt lookings are inside ComponentUIs. JTree uses by default a JLabel to paint nodes, so its the JLabel's size wo guides us to cut the text using ....
Lets make a short excourse: Swing has differen LookAndFeels for different Operation Systems, they are detached from the components in UI-Classes like the BasicLabelUI (and this is the source of your problem). BasicLabelUI caches the size of the label to prevent recalculation if no changes has made. So BasicLabelUI did not clear the cache of theese old size values. BasicLabelUI do clear the cache if he gets informed about any changes.
The question is, why does the BasicLabelUI did not get informed about changes? Well, if you modify/expand/rename the Tree programatically you must tell the ComponentUI to drop that cache!
You lucky, you do not need to write much code because a genius already wrote something for you, the creators of the TreeUI-class Rob Davis and Scott Violet wrote startEditingAtPath and stopEditing.
Example
TreeUI ui = tree.getUI();
for (TreePath treePath : selectionPaths) {
ui.startEditingAtPath(tree, treePath);
}
tree.setSelectionPaths(selectionPaths);
tree.expandPath(expandPaths.getSelectionPath());
ui.stopEditing(layer);

Call your TreeModel's reload()