Choosing Windows or Panels
When you run GUI builder, it provides a default container type, Panel,
for your layout. A panel is a defined area of a top-level window that
can contain elements of a window, such as buttons, checkboxes, and
text fields; it does not create a separate window of its own. A panel
cannot have a menubar. It should be used as the main container for
applets that display their GUIs in a browser page or applet viewer.
To get a container other
than a panel:
To change a panel container to a frame container (or frame to a
panel), see Changing the Main Container Type.
To delete a container:
- Select the container by clicking in the background of the layout window.
- Choose GUI -> Delete Component.
If the container to be deleted was never saved, pressing the Delete
key removes the container; no verification window will appear.
To add a title to a
top-level window:
- Open the attribute editor for the window by double-clicking in the
background of the layout window.
- Type the window name in the title box.
- Click OK to establish the change.
Panels
If you run a project whose top-level container is a panel
as a standalone application, GUI builder automatically
creates a frame in which the panel can run.
Special Attributes
labelAlignment |
Sets the position (left, right, center) of the
borderLabel on the top edge of the panel. |
Frames
A frame is a top-level application window with a title and a border.
A frame should be used as the main container for:
- A standalone application
- An applet whose GUI exists outside of the browser, not within the page
Frames are the only types of containers to which you can add menu bars.
Special Attributes
icon |
The path name of the file that contains the image to be contained
in the icon. A semicolon followed by the size of the image (in
pixels) must be appended after the path name.
The path to the image can be a URL or (preferably)
a path name relative to the codebase of the
applet. If the applet's .class file and image
files are in the same directory, only the simple file name is
required. |
location |
Sets the initial coordinates of the frame on the screen. |
menubar |
Invokes the Menu Editor. For details about creating menus,
see Adding a Menu Bar and Menus. |
resizable |
Determines if the size of the frame can be changed by the user. |
size |
Sets the initial size of the frame. |
visible |
Determines if the frame is initially visible. |
Dialog Boxes
A dialog box is a pop-up window that is accessed from frames and panels.
Special Attributes
location |
Sets the initial coordinates of the dialog box on the screen. |
modal |
Determines whether or not the dialog box is modal. |
resizable |
Determines if the size of the dialog box can be changed by the user. |
size |
Sets the initial size of the dialog box. |
visible |
Determines if the dialog box is initially visible. |
File Dialogs
A file dialog box is a point-and-click file chooser.
The File dialog box cannot be shown while you are editing
the interface in GUI builder because it is a modal dialog
box and would block other windows. The File dialog box
attributes are a straightforward mapping of the attributes
for java.awt.FileDialog
. See the JDK API
documentation to examine java.awt.FileDialog
.
To edit the File Dialog Box
attributes:
- Select the dialog box from the Window list and choose
GUI -> Edit Attributes.
- Change the attributes you want and click OK to apply them.
If you want the file dialog to show when an action occurs (such as a
button press or menu selection), you must add an operation to the
component that is intended to open the file dialog box.
To show the file dialog:
- Select the component which opens the dialog box.
- Open the Attribute Editor by clicking on its button in the main
toolbar.
- Click on the Edit operations button.
- Click Insert in the Operations Editor.
- Click the Action button.
- Select the action type Execute Code.
- Add the following code:
gui.filedialog1.show();
String dir = (String)gui.fileDialog1.get("directory");
String file = (String)gui.fileDialog1.get("file");
Generic Windows
A generic window is a custom window that you can incorporate into your
application. For more information see Adding Custom Components
and Windows
See also:
- GUI Builder Palette
- Laying Out the Interface
- Changing the Main Container Type
- Generating Java Source Code
- Adding Operations to Components
- Visual Java GUI Builder API Documentation
- Visual Java GUI
Builder Runtime Packages
- Class Hierarchy
- Index of
all Fields and Methods