Introduction to GUI Building

Contributed by Saleem Gul and Tomas Pavek, maintained by Ruth Kusterer and Irina Filippova

This beginner tutorial teaches you how to create a simple graphical user interface and add simple
back-end functionality. In particular we will show how to code the behavior of buttons and fields
in a Swing form.

We will work through the layout and design of a GUI and add a few buttons and text field. The
text fields will be used for receiving user input and also for displaying the program output. The
button will initiate the functionality built into the front end. The application we create will be a
simple but functional calculator.

For a more comprehensive guide to the GUI Builder's design features, including video
demonstrations of the various design features, see Designing a Swing GUI in NetBeans IDE.

Expected duration: 15 minutes

Contents

 Exercise 1: Creating a Project

 Exercise 2: Building the Front End
 Exercise 3: Adding Functionality
 Exercise 4: Running the Program
 How Event Handling Works
 See Also

To complete this tutorial, you need the following software and resources.

Software or Resource Version Required

NetBeans IDE version 6.9, 6.8, or 6.7
Java Development Kit (JDK) version 6

Exercise 1: Creating a Project

The first step is to create an IDE project for the application that we are going to develop. We will
name our project NumberAddition.
 1. Choose File > New Project. Alternatively, you can click the New Project icon in the
IDE toolbar.
2. In the Categories pane, select the Java node. In the Projects pane, choose Java
Application. Click Next.
3. Type NumberAddition in the Project Name field and specify a path e.g. in your home
directory as the project location.
4. (Optional) Select the Use Dedicated Folder for Storing Libraries checkbox and specify
the location for the libraries folder. See Sharing Project Libraries for more information on
this option.
5. Ensure that the Set as Main Project checkbox is selected.
6. Deselect the Create Main Class checkbox if it is selected.
7. Click Finish.

Exercise 2: Building the Front End

To proceed with building our interface, we need to create a Java container within which we will
place the other required GUI components. In this step we'll create a container using the JFrame
component. We will place the container in a new package, which will appear within the Source
Packages node.

Create a JFrame container

1. In the Projects window, right-click the NumberAddition node and choose New > Other.
2. In the New File dialog box, choose the Swing GUI Forms category and the JFrame Form
file type. Click Next.
3. Enter NumberAdditionUI as the class name.
4. Enter my.numberaddition as the package.
5. Click Finish.

The IDE creates the NumberAdditionUI form and the NumberAdditionUI class within the
NumberAddition application, and opens the NumberAdditionUI form in the GUI Builder. The
my.NumberAddition package replaces the default package.

Adding Components: Making the Front End

Next we will use the Palette to populate our application's front end with a JPanel. Then we will
add three JLabels, three JTextFields, and three JButtons. If you have not used the GUI Builder
before, you might find information in the Designing a Swing GUI in NetBeans IDE tutorial on
positioning components useful.

Once you are done dragging and positioning the aforementioned components, the JFrame should
look something like the following screenshot.
If you do not see the Palette window in the upper right corner of the IDE, choose Windows >
Palette.

1. Start by selecting a JPanel from the Palette and drop it onto the JFrame.
2. While the JPanel is highlighted, go to the Properties window and click the ellipsis (...)
button next to Border to choose a border style.
3. In the Border dialog, select TitledBorder from the list, and type in Number Addition in
the Title field. Click OK to save the changes and exit the dialog.
4. You should now see an empty titled JFrame that says Number Addition like in the
screenshot. Look at the screenshot and add three JLabels, three JTextFields and three
JButtons as you see above.

Renaming the Components

In this step we are going to rename the display text of the components that were just added to the
JFrame.

1. Double-click jLabel1 and change the text property to First Number

2. Double-click jLabel2 and change the text to Second Number
3. Double-click jLabel3 and change the text to Result
4. Delete the sample text from jTextField1. You can make the display text editable by
clicking the text field, pausing, and then clicking the text field again. You may have to
resize the jTextField1 to its original size. Repeat this step for jTextField2 and
jTextField3.
5. Rename the display text of jButton1 to Clear. (You can edit a button's text by right-
clicking the button and choosing Edit Text. Or you can click the button, pause, and then
click again.)
6. Rename the display text of jButton2 to Add.
7. Rename the display text of jButton3 to Exit.

Your Finished GUI should now look like the following screenshot:
Exercise 3: Adding Functionality
In this exercise we are going to give functionality to the Add, Clear, and Exit buttons. The
jTextField1 and jTextField2 boxes will be used for user input and jTextField3 for program
output - what we are creating is a very simple calculator. Let's begin.

Making the Exit Button Work

In order to give function to the buttons, we have to assign an event handler to each to respond to
events. In our case we want to know when the button is pressed, either by mouse click or via
keyboard. So we will use ActionListener responding to ActionEvent.

1. Right click the Exit button. From the pop-up menu choose Events > Action >
ActionPerformed. Note that the menu contains many more events you can respond to!
When you select the actionPerformed event, the IDE will automatically add an
ActionListener to the Exit button and generate a handler method for handling the
listener's actionPerformed method.
2. The IDE will open up the Source Code window and scroll to where you implement the
action you want the button to do when the button is pressed (either by mouse click or via
keyboard). Your Source Code window should contain the following lines:
3. private void jButton3ActionPerformed(java.awt.event.ActionEvent evt) {
4. //TODO: Add your handling code here:
}

5. We are now going to add code for what we want the Exit Button to do. You will have to
type System.exit(0); to the above code, replacing the TODO line. Your finished Exit
button code should look like this:
6. private void jButton3ActionPerformed(java.awt.event.ActionEvent evt) {
7. System.exit(0);
}

Making the Clear Button Work

 1. Click the Design tab at the top of your work area to go back to the Form Design
2. Right click the Clear button (jButton1). From the pop-up menu select Events > Action >
actionPerformed.
3. We are going to have the Clear button erase all text from the jTextFields. To do this, you
will add some code like above. Your finished source code should look like this:

private void jButton1ActionPerformed(java.awt.event.ActionEvent evt){

jTextField1.setText("");
jTextField2.setText("");
jTextField3.setText("");
}

The above code changes the text in all three of our JTextFields to nothing, in essence it is
overwriting the existing Text with a blank.

Making the Add Button Work

The Add button will perform three actions.

1. It is going to accept user input from jTextField1 and jTextField2 and convert the
input from a type String to a float.
2. It will then perform addition of the two numbers and finally,
3. it will convert the sum to a type String and place it in jTextField3.

Lets get started!

1. Click the Design tab at the top of your work area to go back to the Form Design.
2. Right-click the Add button (jButton2). From the pop-up menu, select Events > Action >
actionPerformed
3. We are going to add some code to have our Add button work. The finished source code
shall look like this:
4. private void jButton2ActionPerformed(java.awt.event.ActionEvent evt){
5. // First we define float variables.
6. float num1, num2, result;
7. // We have to parse the text to a type float.
8. num1 = Float.parseFloat(jTextField1.getText());
9. num2 = Float.parseFloat(jTextField2.getText());
10. // Now we can perform the addition.
11. result = num1+num2;
12. // We will now pass the value of result to jTextField3.
13. // At the same time, we are going to
14. // change the value of result from a float to a string.
15. jTextField3.setText(String.valueOf(result));
}

Our program is now complete we can now build and run it to see it in action.

Exercise 4: Running the Program

To run the program in the IDE:

1. Choose Run > Run Main Project

2. If you get a window informing you that Project NumberAddition does not have a main
class set, then you should select my.NumberAddition.NumberAdditionUI as the main
class in the same window and click the OK button.

To run the program outside of the IDE:

1. Choose Run > Clean and Build Main Project (Shift-F11) to build the application JAR
file.
2. Using your system's file explorer or file manager, navigate to the NumberAddition/dist
directory.
3. Double-click the NumberAddition.jar file.

After a few seconds, the application should start.

Note: If double-clicking the JAR file does not launch the application, see this article for
information on setting JAR file associations in your operating system.

You can also launch the application from the command line.

To launch the application from the command line:

1. On your system, open up a command prompt or terminal window.

2. In the command prompt, change directories to the NumberAddition/dist directory.
3. At the command line, type the following statement:

java -jar NumberAddition.jar

How Event Handling Works

This tutorial has showed how to respond to a simple button event. There are many more events
you can have your application respond to. The IDE can help you find the list of available events
your GUI components can handle:

1. Go back to the file NumberAdditionUI.java in the Editor. Click the Design tab to see
the GUI's layout in the GUI Builder.
2. Right-click any GUI component, and select Events from the pop-up menu. For now, just
browse the menu to see what's there, you don't need to select anything.
3. Alternatively, you can select Properties from the Window menu. In the Properties
window, click the Events tab. In the Events tab, you can view and edit events handlers
associated with the currently active GUI component.
4. You can have your application respond to key presses, single, double and triple mouse
clicks, mouse motion, window size and focus changes. You can generate event handlers
 for all of them from the Events menu. The most common event you will use is an Action
event. (Learn best practices for Event handling from Sun's Java Events Tutorial.)

How does event handling work? Everytime you select an event from the Event menu, the IDE
automatically creates a so-called event listener for you, and hooks it up to your component. Go
through the following steps to see how event handling works.

1. Go back to the file NumberAdditionUI.java in the Editor. Click the Source tab to see
the GUI's source.
2. Scroll down and note the methods jButton1ActionPerformed(),
jButton2ActionPerformed(), and jButton3ActionPerformed() that you just
implemented. These methods are called event handlers.
3. Now scroll to a method called initComponents(). If you do not see this method, look
for a line that says Generated Code; click the + sign next to it to expand the collapsed
initComponents() method.
4. First, note the blue block around the initComponents() method. This code was auto-
generated by the IDE and you cannot edit it.
5. Now, browse through the initComponents() method. Among other things, it contains
the code that initializes and places your GUI components on the form. This code is
generated and updated automatically while you place and edit components in the Design
view.
6. In initComponents(), scroll down to where it says
7. jButton3.setText("Exit");
8. jButton3.addActionListener(new java.awt.event.ActionListener() {
9. public void actionPerformed(java.awt.event.ActionEvent evt) {
10. jButton3ActionPerformed(evt);
11. }
});

This is the spot where an event listener object is added to the GUI component; in this
case, you register an ActionListener to the jButton3. The ActionListener interface has an
actionPerformed method taking ActionEvent object which is implemented simply by
calling your jButton3ActionPerformed event handler. The button is now listening to
action events. Everytime it is pressed an ActionEvent is generated and passed to the
listener's actionPerformed method which in turn executes code that you provided in the
event handler for this event.

Generally speaking, to be able to respond, each interactive GUI component needs to register to
an event listener and needs to implement an event handler. As you can see, NetBeans IDE
handles hooking up the event listener for you, so you can concentrate on implementing the actual
business logic that should be triggered by the event.