Java Swing UI Changing Method - java

I would like to use Swing to program a simple learning game.
I am wondering what would be best way to switch between UI screens.
For example, I would have a screen for the Main Menu, and then when the user presses a button on that screen, I would swap out the whole screen for a completely different one.
Then, arbitrary screens can be swapped in at any moment, and all of their event handlers would be reactivated while the inactive screen's event handlers will be deactivated.
What type of Swing component/control would I use for each of the 'screens'. Is this even doable?

You can consider using CardLayout for that purpose.
Each 'screen' can be made as a separate panel. Then you need a container-panel with card layout. And you'll add all screens to that panel. Switching between cards is easy, it's demonstrated in the linked tutorial.

You could also use JTabbedPane so each screen is connected with one button :-)

You probably don't need to reactivate listeners (although the "business" model end of things might want to check state). Simple switch panels.

Related

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.

How do I refresh a GUI in Java?

I have a general question that is Java related.
I am writing an application that has a GUI menu. I am trying to change one part of the GUI menu based on the selection of a Radio button.
Do I need to:
Redraw the whole window or just update that part with:
setVisible(true)?
If I just use the statement from #1 above .. the GUI is fine -- until I move the mouse over it and then I see the previous button choice. What am I doing wrong?
Swing components have a repaint(), revalidate(), and doLayout() method. One of those should probably be able to redraw whichever pieces you want. However, doLayout is not something that you should be taking responsibility for, that's the layout engines responsibility.
You may also want to check out this post, the first response has a pretty good explanation, and links to an article with more detail.
In terms of the second part of your question, I'm not sure, but we may need to see some code to get an idea. Is the 'replaced area' actually being removed from the view?
..in my application the user select which device platform type they want top test (that choice is a set of two radio buttons on the left). When the user selects either Android or iOS, the center grouping of check boxes changes to reflect a group of android devices they can test or a group of iOS devices that they can test.
Put a panel in the 'center grouping'.
Use a CardLayout for the panel.
Add both iOS & Android controls to the panel with the card layout.
Flip between them as needed.
Call revalidate() on the top level component.

Constant dialog-like functionality on a particular portion of a screen in a Java Swing application - is JDialog functionality the way to go?

To expand upon the headline :
I have a screen (my main window, an encapsulated JFrame) that's going to be created most likely with a GridBagLayout, because I need a grid whose cells are to be differently-sized rectangles. In one of these rectangles will be a malleable dialog-like functionality, with different options depending on the context of the application.
My question is, are custom JDialogs the way to go here? Or do I simply want a reusable JPanel that has the particular buttons I want displayed or disabled depending on the context? I hope this is clear; thanks. -B.
Go with the JPanel solution.
JDialog is a heavy-weight, top-level container, meaning it's window is managed by the system and cannot be embedded as a child of another component.

How can I reuse my JFrame to show several GUIs one after the other, instead of creating a new JFrame for each?

I have developed my Java code in Netbeans, and now I want to develop the GUI for my application.
The application communicates with a server, so it's going to have a login frame for sure. After that there will be a main frame. From the main frame the user can choose where to go and as you can understand there will be a lot of frames.
I have already developed a version of the application where there are a lot of frames and using the "setVisible()", but I want something better looking. I want a stable frame and inside it, changing the panels or something similar.
How would I do this?
You might use JInternalFrames if you like them, or simply use a main panel with a CardLayout, and display the appropriate card depending on the clicked menu item, or the selected JTree node (as it's done in Windows Explorer and similar applications).
Use the Swing tutorial to get you started.
You can, at any time, make any Container object a JFrame's ContentPane. You can also add and remove Containers from any other Container. If you want a user to be able to jump to any of a dozen panels at any time, CardLayout, as suggested in another answer, is easily the best route. If, however, you intend to lead the user along a somewhat controlled path, you can start with a login JPanel. When that's done, you can create the next panel (a JPanel or something else), add it, and dispose of the first one. And so on until the user exits.
If the transition from one panel to another affects nothing else in the program besides the two panels and the parent Container (JFrame or descendant), this is probably the way to go. If a bunch of other places in the program need to know about the change, you'll want a more centralized mechanism, maybe using CardLayout.

Pattern for blocking Java Swing user in worker thread

As most Java programmers know, updates to Swing GUIs should only be done on the AWT event dispatching thread and the recommendation is that long-running processes be executed on a "worker" thread, with updates sent to the event dispatching thread using SwingUtilities.invokeAndWait() or SwingUtilities.invokeLater().
How do you stop the user from proceeding with the application while the long-running process is completed? Do you gray out the controls and then have the worker thread reenable them using the SwingUtilities calls mentioned above?
Is there a better alternative pattern?
I would consider 3 solutions :
disable the components of the panel : it's generally what I do. Unfortunately, Swing does not provide a simple way to disable a panel and all its children, but it is easy to do the recursion (see this other SO answer for that). Another problem is that some Swing components look the same when enabled and disabled (JList, for example)
hide the panel with a CardLayout : in a panel with a CardLayout, add 2 components. The first is the panel that hosts the components to inactivate, and the second is a panel showing a "loading" or "please wait" message. A simple JLabel in a Gridbaglayout does the trick. Then, you just have to switch from one to another. I use this technique for places where a result of a computation/request is to be displayed.
put some kind of component on top of the panel that consumes the mouse events : you can do it yourself with a LayeredPane, or you can use a dedicated utility. JXLayer can do that (I read that JXLayer will be included in Java 7, so this may become the 'standard' solution to this kind of problem).
There are several ways and the selection of which, mostly depends on the design and layout of your GUI.
Use a Progress Bar - Replace the panel or an area that you don't want a user touching with a progress bar. This will prevent you from having to deal with events you don't want yet, while still making it clear to the user that something is happening in the background.
Disable buttons and add a Wait Cursor - Use setEnable(false) while work is being done and nd possibly change the cursor to a Wait Cursor. This again makes it clear that an option is not available yet only for a temporary period.
Don't respond to events or throw up a GlassPane - This is less user-friend as it makes the application look unresponsive, however it can acceptable in some situations.
One way I have seen it done is to use Jframe.setGlassPane() and set a component that eats all events. You can also be creative and use flash kind of rotating-wait gif in your glasspane. But note that setting a glass pane may not be all you want. For more advanced requirements, you may have to play around with event-queues.

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