Swing Basics

Swing Components
• Swing is a collection of libraries that contains
primitive widgets or controls used for designing
Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs).

• Commonly used classes in javax.swing package:

– JButton, JTextBox, JTextArea, JPanel, JFrame, JMenu,
JSlider, JLabel, JIcon, …
– There are many, many such classes to do anything
imaginable with GUIs
– Here we only study the basic architecture and do simple
examples
 Swing components, cont.
• Each component is a Java class with a fairly extensive
inheritency hierarchy:
Object

Component

Container

JComponent Window

JPanel Frame

JFrame
 Using Swing Components
• Very simple, just create object from
appropriate class – examples:
– JButton but = new JButton();
– JTextField text = new JTextField();
– JTextArea text = new JTextArea();
– JLabel lab = new JLabel();
• Many more classes. Don’t need to know
every one to get started.
• See ch. 9 Hortsmann
 Adding components
• Once a component is created, it can be added to a
container by calling the container’s add method:

Container cp = getContentPane(); This is required

cp.add(new JButton(“cancel”));
cp.add(new JButton(“go”));

How these are laid out is determined by the layout

manager.
 Laying out components
• Not so difficult but takes a little practice
• Do not use absolute positioning – not very
portable, does not resize well, etc.
 Laying out components
• Use layout managers – basically tells form how to
align components when they’re added.
• Each Container has a layout manager associated
with it.
• A JPanel is a Container – to have different layout
managers associated with different parts of a form,
tile with JPanels and set the desired layout
manager for each JPanel, then add components
directly to panels.
 Layout Managers
• Java comes with 7 or 8. Most common and
easiest to use are
– FlowLayout
– BorderLayout
– GridLayout
• Using just these three it is possible to attain
fairly precise layout for most simple
applications.
 Setting layout managers
• Very easy to associate a layout manager with a
component. Simply call the setLayout method on
the Container:
JPanel p1 = new JPanel();
p1.setLayout(new FlowLayout(FlowLayout.LEFT));

JPanel p2 = new JPanel();

p2.setLayout(new BorderLayout());

As Components are added to the container, the layout

manager determines their size and positioning.
 What are events?
• All components can listen for one or more events.
• Typical examples are:
– Mouse movements
– Mouse clicks
– Hitting any key
– Hitting return key
– etc.
• Telling the GUI what to do when a particular
event occurs is the role of the event handler.
 ActionEvent
• In Java, most components have a special
event called an ActionEvent.
• This is loosely speaking the most common or
canonical event for that component.
• A good example is a click for a button.
• To have any component listen for
ActionEvents, you must register the
component with an ActionListener. e.g.
– button.addActionListener(new MyAL());
 Delegation, cont.
• This is referred to as the Delegation Model.
• When you register an ActionListener with a
component, you must pass it the class which
will handle the event – that is, do the work
when the event is triggered.
• For an ActionEvent, this class must
implement the ActionListener interface.
• This is simple a way of guaranteeing that the
actionPerformed method is defined.
 actionPerformed
• The actionPerformed method has the following
signature:
void actionPerformed(ActionEvent)
• The object of type ActionEvent passed to the event
handler is used to query information about the event.
• Some common methods are:
– getSource()
• object reference to component generating event
– getActionCommand()
• some text associated with event (text on button, etc).
 actionPerformed, cont.
• These methods are particularly useful when
using one eventhandler for multiple
components.
 Simplest GUI
import javax.swing.JFrame;
class SimpleGUI extends JFrame{
SimpleGUI(){
setSize(400,400); //set frames size in pixels
setDefaultCloseOperation(EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
show();
}

public static void main(String[] args){

SimpleGUI gui = new SimpleGUI();
System.out.println(“main thread coninues”);
}
}
 Another Simple GUI
import javax.swing.*;
class SimpleGUI extends JFrame{
SimpleGUI(){
setSize(400,400); //set frames size in pixels
setDefaultCloseOperation(EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
JButton but1 = new JButton(“Click me”);
Container cp = getContentPane();//must do this
cp.add(but1);
show();
}

public static void main(String[] args){

SimpleGUI gui = new SimpleGUI();
System.out.println(“main thread coninues”);
}}
 Add Layout Manager
import javax.swing.*; import java.awt.*;
class SimpleGUI extends JFrame{
SimpleGUI(){
setSize(400,400); //set frames size in pixels
setDefaultCloseOperation(EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
JButton but1 = new JButton(“Click me”);
Container cp = getContentPane();//must do this
cp.setLayout(new FlowLayout(FlowLayout.CENTER);
cp.add(but1);
show();
}

public static void main(String[] args){

SimpleGUI gui = new SimpleGUI();
System.out.println(“main thread coninues”);
}}
 Add call to event handler
import javax.swing.*; import java.awt.*;
class SimpleGUI extends JFrame{
SimpleGUI(){
setSize(400,400); //set frames size in pixels
setDefaultCloseOperation(EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
JButton but1 = new JButton(“Click me”);
Container cp = getContentPane();//must do this
cp.setLayout(new FlowLayout(FlowLayout.CENTER);
but1.addActionListener(new MyActionListener());
cp.add(but1);
show();
}
public static void main(String[] args){
SimpleGUI gui = new SimpleGUI();
System.out.println(“main thread coninues”);
}}
 Event Handler Code
class MyActionListener implements ActionListener{
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent ae){
JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(“I got clicked”, null);
}

}
 Add second button/event
class SimpleGUI extends JFrame{
SimpleGUI(){
/* .... */
JButton but1 = new JButton(“Click me”);
JButton but2 = new JButton(“exit”);
MyActionListener al = new MyActionListener();
but1.addActionListener(al);
but2.addActionListener(al);
cp.add(but1);
cp.add(but2);
show();
}
}