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Display moving blocks in a JFrame

I have a class that creates a JFrame on which a simple game of Tetris will be played, I also have a class DrawSquare, which does exactly what you think it does, however when I initialise a new instance of the DrawSquare class and then try to draw that one and all the others to my JFrame things start to go wrong, the code is intended for one square to be drawn in the top left hand corner and then drop down a line at a time until it reaches the bottom of the frame (it does this), then a new square should be drawn in the second column at the top of the frame, as well as our first square in the bottom left hand corner, however once it starts dropping down the second column I get a series of squares drawn in a diagonal towards the top right hand corner. At the moment all I plan for the code to do is have a square drop from the top row of each column and stop when it reaches the bottom of the frame, am I storing the instance of the class at the wrong point in the code? Edit: In fact I'm pretty sure it's that, I'd want to store that instance when it reaches the bottom. Does every instance of the class need its own timer?
public class Tetris extends JFrame {
public static final int height = 20; //height of a square
public static final int width = 20; //width of a square
public int xPos = 0; //column number of the square
public int yPos = 0; //row number of the square
public static void main(String[] args){
Tetris tet = new Tetris();
}
public Tetris() {
DrawSquare square = new DrawSquare(xPos, yPos, width, height, false);
add(square);
DrawSquare.squares.add(square);
setSize(220,440);
setLocationRelativeTo(null);
setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
setVisible(true);
}
}
public class DrawSquare extends JPanel {
public static List<DrawSquare> squares = new ArrayList<>();
protected int xPos;
protected int yPos;
protected int width;
protected int height;
protected Timer timer = new Timer(200, new TimerListener());
protected boolean endFall = false;
public DrawSquare(int xPos, int yPos, int width, int height, boolean endFall) {
this.xPos = xPos;
this.yPos = yPos;
this.width = width;
this.height = height;
this.endFall = endFall;
this.timer.start();
}
class TimerListener implements ActionListener {
#Override
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
yPos++;
if (yPos > 19) {
yPos = 19;
endFall = true;
}
if (endFall == true) {
timer.stop();
if (xPos > 8) {
xPos = 8;
}
xPos++;
endFall = false;
yPos = 0;
DrawSquare newSqr = new DrawSquare(xPos, yPos, width, height, true);
squares.add(newSqr);
add(newSqr);
}
timer.start();
repaint();
}
}
protected void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
super.paintComponent(g);
Iterator<DrawSquare> it = squares.iterator();
while (it.hasNext()) {
DrawSquare square = it.next();
g.fillRect(square.xPos * square.width, square.yPos * square.height, square.width, square.height);
}
}
}

You are giving a great example of the fundamental misunderstanding beginners have of how the swing (and many other graphics toolkits) render stuff to the screen. I will give an overview of that, as it pertains to you, then answer your immediate questions and explain how to fix your code.
It took me a (very long) while to figure out how this stuff works my self, so please bear with me. I hope that reading through this answer will help you in a much more general way than answering this one question.
Asynchronous Drawing
Swing draws windows in a totally different sequence (the event dispatching thread) than the ones that modifies the state of your program (the main thread, as well as timer and other threads). You can modify the coordinates of things you want to draw as many times as you like in the main thread, but the changes will not show up until you request them to by calling JComponent.repaint() on one of your components. This will generally trigger a nearly-immediate repaint of the component, displaying your latest state.
If you change the coordinates of a widget like a JPanel in your main thread, it will likely show up immediately. This is because the methods you use to set the position will trigger repaint requests internally.
A repaint request gets queued and eventually processed by the event dispatching thread. This is where the paintComponent method gets called. The paintComponent method should therefore only draw. It should not do any other logic. If it needs to know how to draw some specialized stuff, the information for that should be stashed somewhere accessible by one of the other threads.
In short, you make calculations and update state as you need in the main thread or the timer. Then you access that state in the event dispatching thread via the paintComponent method.
Timers
There are a bunch of ways you can use timers to run your GUI, but you only really need one for the current application. In your case, the timer only needs to do two things:
Check if a block has fallen all the way down and doesn't need to move any more.
Trigger a repaint of your panel.
You do not need to compute the updated position of the blocks in the timer if the block's position is a simple equation with respect to time. If you know the time at which a block appears on the screen and the current time, you know how far the block has moved, so you can paint it in the correct spot based purely on the elapsed time.
If you had a more complicated system with paths that you could not predict purely on the time, I would recommend sticking the movement logic into the timer events as well. In that case, you might consider having multiple timers, or switching to java.util.timer. But again, this does not apply to your current case (even with multiple blocks).
Model and View
The model of your program is the thing that holds the abstract state. In this case, the positions and other meta-data about all your blocks. The view is the part that does the rendering. It is usually a good idea to separate these two things. There is often a third component to GUIs, called the controller, which connects the model and view to the user. We will ignore it here since you are not asking about controlling the blocks yet.
In your current code, you have attempted to represent your blocks with an extension to JPanel and a static list of existing blocks. While a JPanel may be a convenient way to display rectangular blocks with some custom graphics in them (like icons), I would recommend that you start by drawing the blocks directly using the Graphics object passed to paintComponent. At least initially, it will help you to think of the drawing code and the game logic as separate entities.
Final Rant Before Code Dump
I have made rewrites to your code to encapsulate all the ranting I did before into code. Here are some additional minor points about what I did that may help explain my reasoning:
When you call JFrame.add(...) to add a component to a JFrame, you are really calling JFrame.getContentPane().add(...). The content pane is where 90% of normal swing components go in a window. Therefore, we can either set the JPanel that will do the rendering as your content pane or we can add it to the current content pane. I have chosen to do the latter so that you can add other widgets, like a score board, at a later time.
Class names should generally be nouns, while methods are often verbs. This is not an absolute rule (nothing really is), but naming things this way will often help you visualize the interactions between objects in a more meaningful way. I have renamed DrawSquare to GamePiece for this reason.
There is no longer any reason for GamePiece to be a JPanel. It just needs to know its own width, height, and time of appearance.
The other problem with trying to have DrawSquare draw itself is that a component can only really draw within its own bounding box. So you really want to override the paintComponent of whatever holds the rectangles.
The rendering class maintains a reference to two lists of GamePieces. One is for the moving objects and one is for the ones that have fallen. The logic for moving them between the lists is in the timer. This is better than say adding a flag to GamePiece because it facilitates incremental repaint. I will only partially illustrate this here, but there is a version of repaint that only requests a small region to be painted. This would be useful to speed up the movement.
Code
public class Tetris extends JFrame
{
public static final int height = 20; //height of a square
public static final int width = 20; //width of a square
public static final int x = 0;
private GamePanel gamePanel;
public static void main(String[] args)
{
Tetris tet = new Tetris();
// Normally you would tie this to a button or some other user-triggered action.
tet.gamePanel.start();
tet.gamePanel.addPiece(new GamePiece(width, height, x));
}
public Tetris()
{
getContentPane().setLayout(new BorderLayout());
gamePanel = GamePanel();
add(gamePanel, BorderLayout.CENTER);
setSize(220,440);
setLocationRelativeTo(null);
setDefaultCloseOperation(EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
setVisible(true);
}
}
public class GamePanel extends JPanel
{
private List<GamePiece> moving;
private List<GamePiece> still;
private Timer timer;
public GamePanel()
{
moving = new ArrayList<>();
still = new ArrayList<>();
timer = new Timer(100, new TimerListener());
}
public addPiece(int width, int height, int x)
{
moving.add(new GamePiece(width, height, x));
}
public void start()
{
timer.start();
}
#Override
public void paintComponent(Graphics g)
{
Rectangle clip = g.getClipBounds(null);
Rectangle rectToDraw = new Rectangle();
// I prefer this, but you can make the call every
// time you call `GamePiece.getY()`
long time = System.currentTimeMillis();
for(GamePiece piece : this.moving) {
rectToDraw.setSize(piece.width, piece.height)
rectToDraw.setLocation(piece.x, piece.getY(time))
if(rectangleToDraw.intersects(clip))
((Graphics2D)g).fill(rectToDraw)
}
for(GamePiece piece : this.still) {
rectToDraw.setSize(piece.width, piece.height)
rectToDraw.setLocation(piece.x, piece.getY(time))
if(rectangleToDraw.intersects(clip))
((Graphics2D)g).fill(rectToDraw)
}
}
private class TimerListener implements ActionListener
{
#Override
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)
{
long time = System.currentTimeMillis();
// Using non-iterator loop to move the pieces that
// stopped safely. Iterator would crash on in-loop move.
for(int i = 0; i < moving.size(); i++) {
piece = moving.get(i);
if(piece.getY(time) > 440 - piece.height) {
moving.remove(i);
still.add(piece);
i--;
}
}
repaint();
}
}
}
public class GamePiece
{
public final int width;
public final int height;
public final long startTime;
public int x;
public GamePiece(int width, int height, int x)
{
this.width = width;
this.height = height;
this.startTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
this.x = x;
}
public int getY(long time)
{
// This hard-codes a velocity of 10px/sec. You could
// implement a more complex relationship with time here.
return (int)((time - this.startTime) / 100.0);
}
}

Your main problem in a nutshell: you need to separate the JPanel component class from the square logical class. Right now, they are one and the same, and every time you create a new DrawSqaure, you're creating a new JPanel, starting a new Swing Timer, and thus calling code that doesn't need to be called. This is also forcing you to make the List static else you'd have a stack overflow error. Solution: separate the two out, make your List non-static, and use only one Swing Timer.

JavaFX - Notify when user drags mouse from one Node to another?

I have the following basic GUI for demonstration:
I'm trying to achieve the following functionality but I've exhausted all avenues that I've attempted.
User can left click on any of the ImageView's and it will create an
arrow that follows the user's cursor around until the user let's go of
the mouse button. (arrow start x,y is where he clicked and end x,y is
where his mouse currently is) If the user clicked on the Red
ImageView and dragged it over the Blue ImageView and then let go,
the program would print User just clicked from R to B
If the user clicked on the Red ImageView and let go of the mouse but
was not over a different ImageView, the program would print User
just clicked from R but did not target a different ImageView.
Under all circumstances, the arrow will appear when the user clicks on
the ImageView and will disappear the second he lets go of the mouse.
import javafx.application.Application;
import javafx.scene.Scene;
import javafx.scene.image.Image;
import javafx.scene.image.ImageView;
import javafx.scene.layout.Pane;
import javafx.scene.shape.Line;
import javafx.stage.Stage;
import java.util.HashMap;
public class Test extends Application
{
public static int HEIGHT = 500, WIDTH = 600;
#Override
public void start(Stage primaryStage) throws Exception
{
ImageView blue = new ImageView(new Image("blue.png")),
red = new ImageView(new Image("red.png")),
dark = new ImageView(new Image("dark.png"));
// Final array as to bypass the `final` requirement of event handler inner classes.
final ImageView[] hoveredOver = new ImageView[1];
final Line[] linePtr = new Line[1];
linePtr[0] = new Line();
linePtr[0].setStrokeWidth(10);
HashMap<ImageView, Character> lookup = new HashMap<ImageView, Character>(3)
{{
put(blue, 'B');
put(red, 'R');
put(dark, 'D');
}};
for (ImageView i : new ImageView[] { blue, red, dark })
{
i.setFitWidth(150);
i.setFitHeight(150);
// Set the anchor points of the click and display the arrow.
i.setOnMousePressed(e -> {
linePtr[0].setStartX(e.getX());
linePtr[0].setStartY(e.getY());
linePtr[0].setVisible(true);
});
// Move the arrow as the mouse moves.
i.setOnMouseDragged(e -> {
linePtr[0].setEndX(e.getX());
linePtr[0].setEndY(e.getY());
});
i.setOnMouseReleased(e -> {
// Not null means that the user WAS actually just now hovering over an imageview.
if (hoveredOver[0] != null)
System.out.printf("The user clicked from %c to %c!\n", lookup.get(i), lookup.get(hoveredOver[0]));
// Null means the user is not over an ImageView.
else
System.out.printf("The user initially clicked %c but did not drag to another Imageview.\n", lookup.get(i));
linePtr[0].setVisible(false);
});
// If the user enters ANY of the ImageViews,
// Set a variable so that the drag release listener
// can know about it!
i.setOnMouseDragOver(e -> hoveredOver[0] = i);
i.setOnMouseDragExited(e -> hoveredOver[0] = null);
}
blue.setX(400);
blue.setY(250);
red.setY(300);
red.setX(50);
/*
In this example I'm using a Pane but in my real program
I might be using a VBOX HBOX etc where I cannot freely move stuff around as I'd like.
This makes things extremely difficult and without using a 'Pane'
I don't know how this can even be done. Suggestions?
*/
Pane pneRoot = new Pane(blue, red, dark, linePtr[0]);
Scene scene = new Scene(pneRoot, WIDTH, HEIGHT);
primaryStage.setScene(scene);
primaryStage.show();
}
public static void main(String[] args)
{
launch(args);
}
}
This was my best attempt and it's not even close. It moves a line (not an arrow, and ideally I want my arrow to curve as it moves much like this example image from a popular video game) but does not suit my needs. It cannot detect however when I let go while 'dragging over' an ImageView.
Is there a better way to do this? I feel like I can't simply the code I have down any further but there MUST be another way.

Java is an object-oriented language. The basic idea is that you create classes to represent the data you are modeling and then create objects from those classes. If you are tying things together with arbitrary maps to look things up, and arrays kicking around for no apparent reason, you are starting in the wrong place.
JavaFX has a system of observable properties. These wrap objects in a mutable way and can be observed so you can respond to changes.
Make sure you read and understand the documentation on MouseEvents and MouseDragEvents. There are three different modes for handling dragging. For events (mouse drag events) to be sent to nodes other than the one on which the drag was initiated during a mouse drag, you need to be in full "press-drag-release gesture" mode. You can activate this mode by calling startFullDrag() on the node when responding to a dragDetected event.
I would start with something like
public class NamedDragAwareImageView {
private final ObjectProperty<NamedDragAwareImageView> source ;
private final ObjectProperty<NamedDragAwareImageView> destination ;
private final String name ;
private final ImageView imageView ;
public NamedDragAwareImageView(ObjectProperty<NamedDragAwareImageView> source,
ObjectProperty<NamedDragAwareImageView> destination,
String name, String resource) {
this.source = source ;
this.destination = destination ;
this.name = name ;
this.imageView = new ImageView(new Image(resource));
imageView.setOnDragDetected(e -> {
source.set(this);
destination.set(null);
imageView.startFullDrag();
});
imageView.setOnMouseDragReleased(e -> {
if (source.get() != null && source.get() != this) {
destination.set(this);
}
});
// other image view config...
}
public ImageView getView() {
return imageView ;
}
public String getName() {
return name ;
}
}
Then you can do things like:
// observable properties to represent start and end nodes for drag:
ObjectProperty<NamedDragAwareImageView> source = new SimpleObjectProperty<>();
ObjectProperty<NamedDragAwareImageView> destination = new SimpleObjectProperty<>();
Pane root = new Pane();
// create your named image views, referencing the source and destination
// and add their image views to root, e.g.
NamedDragAwareImageView red = new NamedDragAwareImageView(source, destination, "Red", "red.png");
root.getChildren().add(red.getView());
// recommend using SVG paths (i.e. javafx.scene.shape.Path) for the arrow
// easy to draw programmatically, easy to manipulate elements etc:
Path arrowHead = new Path();
MoveTo arrowHeadStart = new MoveTo();
arrowHead.getElements().add(arrowHeadStart);
arrowHead.getElements().addAll(/* draw an arrow head with relative path elements... */);
arrowHead.setVisible(false);
// avoid arrowHead interfering with dragging:
arrowHead.setMouseTransparent(true);
// this will contain a MoveTo and a bunch of LineTo to follow the mouse:
Path arrowLine = new Path();
arrowLine.setMouseTransparent(true);
root.getChildren().addAll(arrowHead, arrowLine);
// change listener for source. source is set when drag starts:
source.addListener((obs, oldSource, newSource) -> {
if (newSource == null) return ;
arrowHeadStart.setX(/* x coord based on newSource */);
arrowHeadStart.setY(/* similarly */);
arrowHead.setVisible(true);
});
// change listener for destination. destination is only set
// when drag complete:
destination.addListener((obs, oldDestination, newDestination) -> {
if (newDestination != null) {
System.out.println("User dragged from "+source.get().getName()+
" to "+destination.get().getName());
}
});
root.setOnMouseDragOver(e -> {
if (source.get()==null && destination.get()!=null) {
// update arrowStart position
// add line element to arrowLine
}
});
root.setOnMouseReleased(e -> {
// clear arrow:
arrowHead.setVisible(false);
arrowLine.getElements().clear();
});

Java/libGDX - issues with Actions.fadeIn() and Actions.fadeOut()

it's my first time posting and I'm self taught so be please gentle!
I've been building a bomberman replica game in libGDX using Game and Screen classes:
public class Main extends Game {
...
#Override
public void create() {
levelScreen = new LevelScreen(playerCount, new int[playerCount]);
levelScreen.level.addAction(Actions.sequence(Actions.alpha(0), Actions.fadeIn(2f)));
this.setScreen(levelScreen);
}
However when the game launches there is no fade effect.
public class LevelScreen implements Screen {
...
#Override
public void render(float delta) {
Gdx.gl.glClearColor(1, 0.1f, 0.5f, 0);
Gdx.gl.glClear(GL20.GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT);
batch.begin();
level.act();
level.draw();
batch.end();
}
I want this levelScreen to fade in from black but it just doesn't!
When the round is over I want to fadeOut of this levelScreen to black, then fadeIn to a trophyScreen from black:
(From Main Class)
#Override
public void render() {
super.render();
if (endRoundTimer <= 0) {
trophyScreen = new TrophyScreen(playerCount, levelScreen.getScore());
levelScreen.level.addAction(Actions.sequence(Actions.fadeOut(1), Actions.run(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
setScreen(trophyScreen);
}
})));
}
}
And I've tried using the show() method in the TrophyScreen:
public class TrophyScreen implements Screen {
...
#Override
public void show() {
stage.addAction(Actions.sequence(Actions.alpha(0), Actions.fadeIn(1)));
}
I've done loads of searching and tried various things but no joy. I'm sure I'm missing something somewhere in a draw() or render() method that is preventing the fade Action from taking place.
UPDATE1
#Override public void draw() {
super.draw();
if (roundOver) {
this.getBatch().begin(); String s = String.format("%s", message);
font_text.draw(this.getBatch(), s, (90 + (2 * 30)), (this.getHeight() / 2));
this.getBatch().end();
}

For fading to work on actors, they must properly apply their own color's alpha in the draw method. And for an entire hierarchy of objects to fade at once, they must all also apply the parentAlpha parameter from the draw method signature.
So your draw method in any custom Actor subclass should look like this:
public void draw (Batch batch, float parentAlpha) {
Color color = getColor();
batch.setColor(color.r, color.g, color.b, color.a * parentAlpha);
//..do drawing
}
If you are using a Sprite in your Actor instead of a TextureRegion (which I don't recommend due to redundancies) you must apply the color to the Sprite instead of Batch.
Note that this method of fading the whole game is not a "clean" fade. Any actors that are overlapping other actors will show through each other when the parent alpha is less than 1 during the fade. An alternative that would provide a clean-looking fade would be to draw a copy of your background (or black) over your entire scene and fade that instead.

I assume that level is an object of class that extends Stage and you are creating a control inside the stage, which is weird. You are not appling color to your font_text which I assume it is a BitmapFont
Solution, the weird way
If you want to do it in this way you will need something like that:
#Override public void draw() {
super.draw();
if (roundOver) {
getBatch().begin();
String s = String.format("%s", message);
font_text.setColor(getRoot().getColor())
font_text.draw(this.getBatch(), s, (90 + (2 * 30)), (this.getHeight() / 2));
getBatch().end();
}
}
getRoot() gets Group from Stage, we do it, because every action applied to Stage is actually applied to this Group root element. We get color (which has alpha channel) and we copy the color to the bitmapFont.
This solution is weird, because you are actually creating an Label inside Stage. It is pointless, actors plays on stage, not inside.
Solution, the good way
You want to draw text, right? So just use Label which is an actor, who shows a text. Actors do jobs for you:
stage = new Stage();
Label.LabelStyle labelStyle = new Label.LabelStyle(bitmapFont, Color.WHITE);
Label label = new Label("Hi, I am a label!", labelStyle);
stage.addActor(label);
Then you can apply actions and they will work fine (and every actor can have own actions applied).
stage.addAction(Actions.sequence(Actions.alpha(0), Actions.fadeIn(5)));
label.addAction(Actions.moveBy(0, 300, 15));
There is a lot of different actors like TextButton, Image, ScrollPane. They are customizable, easy to manage and they can be integrated in groups and tables.
Output:

A better way would be to just start by drawing a black image over everything, so you don't have to mess with every scene object's alpha. Use layering to do that. This post may be helpful.
Then you can control it's alpha channel, change it's rendering to 0 right before unpausing the game action to get it's drawing cycles back. Reactivate it on stage ending for your fade out effect.
Thank you cray, it's way better like this.

How to construct Split screen in libgdx? One for 2d animation and One for Information panel

I am trying to construct a layout like this picture:
Should I use two stages?, two cameras?, one stage with splitPane?
I want the top screen to be half of the entire devices height. The top screen will have animated actors and a single background image with some labels close to the top of the screen.
The lower screen should be a Scrollpane with information and at the bottom ,the menu and back buttons.
How do I secure the ratio between them if the screen resizes?
Edit 2014-03-28:
Hi!
I tried using two stages as proposed and I am pretty happy. Thought I share my first try at it. The result was this code:
package se.appltini.mygdxtest;
//imports omitted
public class DualStageTutorial extends ScreenAdapter {
private Stage upperStage;
private Stage bottomStage;
private Skin skin,menuSkin;
#Override
public void show() {
upperStage = new Stage();
bottomStage = new Stage();
skin = new Skin(Gdx.files.internal("uiskin/uiskin.json"));
menuSkin = new Skin(Gdx.files.internal("menuSkin/uiSkin.json"),new TextureAtlas(Gdx.files.internal("menuSkin/uiskin.atlas")));
Image upperImage = new Image(menuSkin.getPatch("menuTexture"));
upperImage.setFillParent(true);
upperStage.addActor(upperImage);
Image bottomImage = new Image(menuSkin.getPatch("menuTexture"));
bottomImage.setFillParent(true);
//setting alpha to 0.5f so we can see the different stages
bottomImage.setColor(1f, 1f, 1f, 0.5f);
bottomStage.addActor(bottomImage);
}
#Override
public void resize(int width, int height) {
}
#Override
public void render(float delta) {
Gdx.gl.glClear(GL20.GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL20.GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT);
upperStage.act(delta);
bottomStage.act(delta);
/*Upper Half*/
//set the openGl viewport to half the screenheight and starting y from the middle of the screen
Gdx.gl.glViewport(0,Gdx.graphics.getHeight()/2,Gdx.graphics.getWidth(),Gdx.graphics.getHeight()/2);
upperStage.draw();
/*bottom Half*/
//set the openGl viewport to half the screenheight and starting y from the bottom of the screen
Gdx.gl.glViewport(0,0,Gdx.graphics.getWidth(),Gdx.graphics.getHeight()/2);
bottomStage.draw();
}
#Override
public void hide() {
dispose();
}
#Override
public void dispose() {
upperStage.dispose();
bottomStage.dispose();
skin.dispose();
menuSkin.dispose();
}
}

The best practice here would be to use two different stages.
Using two stages will simplify design in sense that the viewport management for 2d animation will simplify by a considerable amount. Also the event handling has to be completely different style. Your information panel won't have much relative layout changes in actors as compared to 2d animation.
Using same stage would make sense only if both contents overlap each other in some form. I'm sure this is not the case here. Your info panel will always be ABOVE animation (most probably).
Hope this helps.

Creating custom JButton from images containing transparent pixels

Read edit 2 for what I'm actually missing to make it work
I'm currently trying to create some custom JButtons using images created in photoshop that have an alpha parameter.
So far, overriding the paint() method to draw the image has worked in the sense that the button is drawn showing the correct image. I'd like to improve it, though, by making its shape (clickable area) the same as the visible pixels on the image (right now if I draw the button's border, it's a square).
Is there an easy way to do that or do I have to parse the image and find the alpha pixels to make a custom border?
Which methods would I have to override to make it work the way I want?
Also, another question I'm going to have later: would it be better to use some kind of algorithm to change the images' colors to make it seem like it is being clicked when people click on it or am I better off creating a second image and drawing that one while the button is active?
Edit: I just read on some other question that I should redefine paintComponent() instead of paint(), I'd like to know why since redefining paint() works fine?
Edit 2: I changed everything to make sure my JButtons are created using the default constructor with an icon. What I'm trying to do is get the X and Y position of where the click was registered and grab the icon's pixel at that position and check its alpha channel to see if it is 0 (if it is, do nothing, else do the action it is supposed to do).
The thing is, the alpha channel always returns 255 (and blue, red and green are at 238 on transparent pixels). On other pixels, everything returns the value it should be returning.
Here's an example (try it with another image if you want) that recreates my problem:
public class TestAlphaPixels extends JFrame
{
private final File FILECLOSEBUTTON = new File("img\\boutonrondX.png"); //My round button with transparent corners
private JButton closeButton = new JButton(); //Creating it empty to be able to place it and resize the image after the button size is known
public TestAlphaPixels() throws IOException
{
setLayout(null);
setSize(150, 150);
closeButton.setSize(100, 100);
closeButton.setContentAreaFilled(false);
closeButton.setBorderPainted(false);
add(closeButton);
closeButton.addMouseListener(new MouseListener()
{
public void mouseClicked(MouseEvent e)
{
}
public void mousePressed(MouseEvent e)
{
}
public void mouseReleased(MouseEvent e)
{
System.out.println("Alpha value of pixel (" + e.getX() + ", " + e.getY() + ") is: " + clickAlphaValue(closeButton.getIcon(), e.getX(), e.getY()));
}
public void mouseEntered(MouseEvent e)
{
}
public void mouseExited(MouseEvent e)
{
}
});
Image imgCloseButton = ImageIO.read(FILECLOSEBUTTON);
//Resize the image to fit the button
Image newImg = imgCloseButton.getScaledInstance((int)closeButton.getSize().getWidth(), (int)closeButton.getSize().getHeight(), java.awt.Image.SCALE_SMOOTH);
closeButton.setIcon(new ImageIcon(newImg));
}
private int clickAlphaValue(Icon icon, int posX, int posY)
{
int width = icon.getIconWidth();
int height = icon.getIconHeight();
BufferedImage tempImage = (BufferedImage)createImage(width, height);
Graphics2D g = tempImage.createGraphics();
icon.paintIcon(null, g, 0, 0);
g.dispose();
int alpha = (tempImage.getRGB(posX, posY) >> 24) & 0x000000FF;
return alpha;
}
public static void main(String[] args)
{
try
{
TestAlphaPixels testAlphaPixels = new TestAlphaPixels();
testAlphaPixels.setVisible(true);
testAlphaPixels.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
}
catch(IOException ioe)
{
ioe.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
This is just a wild guess, but is it possible that when my image gets cast to an Icon, it loses its Alpha property and thus doesn't return the correct value? Anyway, I'd really appreciate it if someone could actually help me out and tell me what I should be changing to get the correct value.
I'm guessing that because when I try it with the original image, the alpha channel's value is fine, but I can't actually use that BufferedImage because I resize it, so I actually get the channel values of the image with the original size...

I think you are on the wrong way. You do not have to override neither paint() nor paintComponent() methods. JButton already "knows" to be shown with image only:
ImageIcon cup = new ImageIcon("images/cup.gif");
JButton button2 = new JButton(cup);
See the following tutorial for example: http://www.apl.jhu.edu/~hall/java/Swing-Tutorial/Swing-Tutorial-JButton.html
Moreover swing is fully customized. You can control opacity, border, color etc. You probably should override some mentioned methods to change functionality. But in most cases there is better and simpler solution.

Since there were good elements in multiple answers, but none of the answers were complete on their own, I'll answer my own question so other people that have the same problem can try something similar.
I created my buttons using a new class which extends JButton, with a new constructor that takes a BufferedImage as parameter instead of an icon. The reason for that is that when I did something like myButton.getIcon(), it would return an Icon, then I'd have to make various manipulations on it to make it a BufferedImage of the right size, and it ended up not working anyway because it seems like the first cast to Icon made it lose the alpha data in the pixels, so I couldn't check to see if the user was clicking on transparent pixels or not.
So I did something like this for the constructor:
public class MyButton extends JButton
{
private BufferedImage bufImg;
public MyButton(BufferedImage bufImg)
{
super(new ImageIcon(bufImg));
this.bufImg = bufImg;
}
}
Then I created an accessor for my bufImg that resized the image to fit the JButton using the getSize() method and then returned an image resized at the right size. I do the transformations in the getBufImg() accessor because the image size might change when the window gets resized. When you call the getBufImg(), it's usually because you clicked on the button and thus you're not currently resizing the window.
Something a little bit like this will return the image at the right size:
public BufferedImage getBufImg()
{
BufferedImage newImg = new BufferedImage(getSize().getWidth(), getSize().getHeight(), BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_ARGB); //Create a new buffered image the right size
Graphics2D g2d = newImg.createGraphics();
g2d.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_INTERPOLATION, RenderingHints.VALUE_INTERPOLATION_BILINEAR);
g2d.drawImage(bufImg, 0, 0, getSize().getWidth(), getSize().getHeight(), null);
g2d.dispose();
return newImg;
}
With that buffered image, you can then code a method like this:
private int clickAlphaValue(BufferedImage bufImg, int posX, int posY)
{
int alpha;
alpha = (bufImg.getRGB(posX, posY) >>24) & 0x000000FF; //Gets the bit that contains alpha information
return alpha;
}
That you call on the button that implements a MouseListener, like this:
myButton.addMouseListener(new MouseListener()
{
public void mouseClicked(MouseEvent e)
{
}
public void mousePressed(MouseEvent e)
{
}
public void mouseReleased(MouseEvent e)
{
if(clickAlphaValue(((myButton)e.getSource()).getBufImg(), e.getX(), e.getY()) != 0) //If alpha is not set to 0
System.exit(0); //Or other things you want your button to do
}
public void mouseEntered(MouseEvent e)
{
}
public void mouseExited(MouseEvent e)
{
}
});
And voila! The button will only do the action if you clicked on non-transparent pixels.
Thanks for the help everyone, I couldn't have come up with this solutions on my own.

If you want to have shape-specific click points, you're better off using Shape and their contains method. If you want, you can create a shape when creating your custom button class as part of it, and implement a contains method by wrapping around the shape's contains method.
As for the custom JButton, create a class that extends JButton, like this:
import java.awt.*;
import javax.swing.*;
public class CustomButton extends JButton{
/** Filename of the image to be used as the button's icon. */
private String fileName;
/** The width of the button */
private int width;
/** The height of the button. */
private int height;
public CustomButton(String fileName, int width, int height){
this.fileName = fileName;
this.width = width;
this.height = height;
createButton();
}
/**
* Creates the button according to the fields set by the constructor.
*/
private void createButton(){
this.setIcon(getImageIcon(filename));
this.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(width, height));
this.setMaximumSize(new Dimension(width, height));
this.setFocusPainted(false);
this.setRolloverEnabled(false);
this.setOpaque(false);
this.setContentAreaFilled(false);
this.setBorderPainted(false);
this.setBorder(BorderFactory.createEmptyBorder(0,0,0,0));
}
}
Here's how you can load the ImageIcon, if you want to do it like this.
public ImageIcon getImageIcon(String fileName){
String imageDirectory = "images/"; //relative to classpath
URL imgURL = getClass().getResource(imageDirectory + fileName);
return new ImageIcon(imgURL);
}
This will give you a button that will at least look like your image.
I asked a similar question regarding Image-based events on click, and Shapes helped wonders.
I guess it comes down to how complex your button images are.
Here's reference anyway:
How can you detect a mouse-click event on an Image object in Java?
PS: Maybe look into generating shapes from images, that go around all the pixels that aren't transparent. No idea if this is possible, but it would mean that a button would only be "pressed" if the user clicks on the image part of it. Just a thought.

If you want your button layout to be that of the non-transparent pixels in your image, then you should redefine the paintComponent() method. It is the most correct way of doing it (overriding paint() worked in old times but is now discouraged).
However I think it is not exactly what you want: you want a click on the button to be detected only if it is on a non-transparent pixel, right? In that case you have to parse your image and when clicked compare mouse coordinates to the pixel alpha channel of your image as JButton does not have such a feature.

If you have a round button, this is exactly what you need:
public class RoundButton extends JButton {
public RoundButton() {
this(null, null);
}
public RoundButton(Icon icon) {
this(null, icon);
}
public RoundButton(String text) {
this(text, null);
}
public RoundButton(Action a) {
this();
setAction(a);
}
public RoundButton(String text, Icon icon) {
setModel(new DefaultButtonModel());
init(text, icon);
if(icon==null) return;
setBorder(BorderFactory.createEmptyBorder(0,0,0,0));
setContentAreaFilled(false);
setFocusPainted(false);
initShape();
}
protected Shape shape, base;
protected void initShape() {
if(!getBounds().equals(base)) {
Dimension s = getPreferredSize();
base = getBounds();
shape = new Ellipse2D.Float(0, 0, s.width, s.height);
}
}
#Override public Dimension getPreferredSize() {
Icon icon = getIcon();
Insets i = getInsets();
int iw = Math.max(icon.getIconWidth(), icon.getIconHeight());
return new Dimension(iw+i.right+i.left, iw+i.top+i.bottom);
}
#Override public boolean contains(int x, int y) {
initShape();
return shape.contains(x, y);
//or return super.contains(x, y) && ((image.getRGB(x, y) >> 24) & 0xff) > 0;
}
}
JButton has a contains() method. Override it and call it on mouseReleased();

paintComponent() instead of paint() depends if you paint() inside XxxButtonUI or just override paintComponent(), but there exists the option JButton#setIcon.