Phil Herold

In this month's article I introduce TableLayout, a robust but easy-to-use LayoutManager for use in any Java Swing application. It's based very loosely on the HTML TABLE paradigm, where components are placed in table cells in row-major order. Vertical and horizontal alignment for the component in a cell can be specified, and a component (cell) may span rows and columns. I also present Forms-Panel, a JPanel sub-class that abstracts the underlying TableLayout. This article assumes you have some familiarity with the design and use of LayoutManagers in Swing. Background I have been doing Java Swing applications for many years, and I've never been comfortable using a GUI designer tool, both for the verbose and often horrible Java code they produce and the lack of support for anything other than absolute positioning and sizing of components. I suspect that the quality of... (more)

ArrayListModel with Swing's JList and JComboBox

This article presents a data model based on a Collection implementation that can be used with Swing components JList and JComboBox. It also discusses a method to use these same concepts in constructing the user interface of an application. Overview Java Collections are indispensable for building any application, whether GUI or non-GUI. And the ArrayList class is a heavyweight in the java.util package. In a GUI application, the user often must choose items from a list, which can be presented in a variety of forms (drop down combo, list box, etc.). For example, the Java Swing comp... (more)

List-Based UI Framework For Your Swing Applications

In this month's article I continue my discussion of a list-based UI framework that I started last month ("ArrayListModel," [JDJ, Vol. 10, issue 10]). The primary concept behind this idea is a data model that contains elements that describe parts of an application's user interface. Through a single model, various aspects of the user interface can be controlled, manipulated, and visually synchronized. There is a lot of interesting code that accompanies this article, so I encourage you to download it and check it out. Let's get started. Data Model Recall from last month's article t... (more)

FrameResizer

This article presents a Java/Swing component implementation of a feature that is ubiquitous in nearly all desktop applications, particularly Windows applications - an area in the lower right portion of a window (Frame) that can be used to resize the window. Of course, a window can be re-sized with most desktop managers by dragging the lower-right edge - the additional component simply serves as a visual indicator of the resize capability, and also increases the margin of error for the mouse drag. Typically this component is placed in a status or message area at the bottom of a ... (more)