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class variable not updating after method call

I am quite new to Java and only after researching and googling and reading many answers, I am posting this. I am kinda lost. A little guidance would be of great help. The following is a method from a class that implements the "ActionListener" interface. What I am trying to do is this: There is a button which one clicked should open a new window with two options in the form of two Radio Buttons. I need to know the Radio Button which was selected for further use in my code. I declared, the "scoreOption" variable as a class variable and static, and then attempt to update it in the "actionPerformed" abstract method. But when I refer to it (after the method call), the value stays the same - null, or whatever I set it to initially. Here is the code:
import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
import java.text.ParseException;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Scanner;
import javax.swing.ButtonGroup;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.JRadioButton;
import javax.swing.JTextArea;
import javax.swing.event.ChangeEvent;
import javax.swing.event.ChangeListener;
public class StartEvents implements ActionListener {
StartPanel startingPanel;
static String scoreOption;
public StartEvents(StartPanel startPanel) {
startingPanel = startPanel;
}
// Scoring System Window - 1
public void scoringSystem() {
startingPanel.scoringSystem.addActionListener(new ActionListener () {
#Override
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
Panel scoringSystemPanel = new Panel();
JFrame scoreSystemFrame = scoringSystemPanel.frame(150, 250, "Scoring System", 2, true);
JPanel scoreSystemPanel = scoringSystemPanel.panel(Color.lightGray);
JButton confirmSelection = scoringSystemPanel.button(40, 20, "Confirm");
JRadioButton scoreSystem1 = scoringSystemPanel.radioButton("Option 1: Same Points Per Hit");
scoreSystem1.setActionCommand("Option 1");
JRadioButton scoreSystem2 = scoringSystemPanel.radioButton("Option 2: Unique Points Per Hit");
scoreSystem2.setActionCommand("Option 2");
ButtonGroup scoreSys = new ButtonGroup();
scoreSys.add(scoreSystem1);
scoreSys.add(scoreSystem2);
scoreSystemFrame.getContentPane().add(scoreSystemPanel);
scoreSystemPanel.add(scoreSystem1);
scoreSystemPanel.add(scoreSystem2);
scoreSystemPanel.add(confirmSelection);
// Get Selection Event
// Option 1
scoreSystem1.addActionListener(new ActionListener () {
#Override
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
if (scoreSystem1.isSelected()) {
scoreOption = scoreSystem1.getActionCommand();
}
}
});
// Option 2
scoreSystem2.addActionListener(new ActionListener () {
#Override
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
if (scoreSystem2.isSelected()) {
scoreOption = scoreSystem2.getActionCommand();
}
}
});
// Confirm Event
confirmSelection.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
#Override
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
scoreSystemFrame.dispose();
}
});
}
});
}
Main Game Class where the method scoringsystem is called.
import java.util.ArrayList;
public class Game {
public static void main(String[] args) {
StartPanel startingPanel = new StartPanel();
startingPanel.makeStartPanel();
StartEvents starter = new StartEvents(startingPanel);
starter.rulesButton();
starter.exitButton();
starter.highScoresButton();
ArrayList<Integer> dimensions = starter.boardSizeSelector();
// Problem Zone
System.out.println(StartEvents.scoreOption);
starter.scoringSystem();
System.out.println(StartEvents.scoreOption);
// The two values of scoreOption should be different
String[] playPanelDetails = {"970", "Player 1", "450"};
// Final Start of the Game
starter.startGameButton(playPanelDetails, dimensions);
}
}
Furthermore, could you please let me know regarding the following questions:
Implementing "ActionListener" within another "ActionListener" is recommended? Good Practice?
Can there only be one declaration of the "actionPerformed" method or can it be overloaded too?
Is it possible to get a return value from "actionPerformed" method?
I would be really grateful if even some hints could be provided. I really tried a lot and only then posting it here. Thank you very much in advance.
Small Edit: When I "System.out.println" the "actioncommand" there itself, it does work perfectly, printing in the console. But not when I try to update the class variable and then try to print it after the method call. Dunno if this helps.

JFrames are not modal -- you create one and display it, it does not block the code flow, and so you are extracting the value of scoreOption right as the JFrame is being displayed and before the user has had any chance to change it. You need to use a modal dialog such as a JDialog that is created as a modal dialog or use a JOptionPane (which is actually just a modal JDialog under the hood). This will block the flow of code so that you extract the data only after it has been changed by the user.
An example that proves the point:
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import javax.swing.*;
public class FooGui01 extends JPanel {
private String frameTest = "";
private String dialogTest = "";
private JFrame mainFrame = new JFrame("Main GUI");
private JFrame subFrame;
private JDialog dialog;
public FooGui01() {
JButton showFrameBtn = new JButton("Show JFrame");
showFrameBtn.addActionListener(e -> {
changeTest1WithJFrame();
System.out.println("frameTest: " + frameTest);
});
JButton showDialogBtn = new JButton("Show JDialog");
showDialogBtn.addActionListener(e -> {
changeTest2WithModalDialog();
System.out.println("dialogTest: " + dialogTest);
});
JPanel panel = new JPanel();
panel.add(showDialogBtn);
panel.add(showFrameBtn);
mainFrame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
mainFrame.add(panel);
mainFrame.pack();
mainFrame.setLocationByPlatform(true);
mainFrame.setVisible(true);
}
public void changeTest1WithJFrame() {
if (subFrame == null) {
subFrame = new JFrame("Frame");
JButton button = new JButton("Press me");
button.addActionListener(e -> {
frameTest = "Hello World and frameTest";
subFrame.setVisible(false);
});
JPanel panel = new JPanel();
panel.add(button);
subFrame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.HIDE_ON_CLOSE);
subFrame.add(panel);
subFrame.pack();
subFrame.setLocationByPlatform(true);
}
subFrame.setVisible(true);
}
public void changeTest2WithModalDialog() {
if (dialog == null) {
dialog = new JDialog(mainFrame, "Dialog", Dialog.ModalityType.APPLICATION_MODAL);
JButton button = new JButton("Press me");
button.addActionListener(e -> {
dialogTest = "Hello World and dialogTest";
dialog.setVisible(false);
});
JPanel panel = new JPanel();
panel.add(button);
dialog.add(panel);
dialog.pack();
dialog.setLocationByPlatform(true);
}
dialog.setVisible(true);
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
SwingUtilities.invokeLater(() -> new FooGui01());
}
}
If you run the code, when you show the sub JFrame, the test text is displayed immediately in the console before the dialog has been dealt with. If you press the button to show the dialog, the test text display is delayed until after the button has been pushed, changing the text.
Pressing the frame button twice will finally show the correct text since the text was set by the first time it was displayed.

A JDialig is just like a JFrame. That is you add components to it like you do any frame.
The difference is that you can make a JDialog modal. This means that when you use:
dialog.setVisible(true);
System.out.println("here");
The code after the setVisible(...) statement will not be executed until the dialog is closed. It also means you can't click on the parent JFrame until the dialog is closed.
An easy way to create a modal JDialog is to use a JOptionPane. It has some predefined methods that make prompting for user input easy.
For example in your case you could do something like:
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import javax.swing.*;
public class SSCCE extends JPanel
{
private int scoringOption = -1;
public SSCCE()
{
JButton button = new JButton("Change Points Option");
add(button);
button.addActionListener((e) -> displayOptionDialog());
}
private void displayOptionDialog()
{
Window window = SwingUtilities.windowForComponent( this );
// Custom button text
Object[] options = {"Option 1: Same Points Per Hit", "Option 2: Unique Points Per Hit"};
scoringOption = JOptionPane.showOptionDialog(
window,
"Select your scoring option:",
"Scoring Option",
JOptionPane.YES_NO_CANCEL_OPTION,
JOptionPane.QUESTION_MESSAGE,
null,
options,
null);
System.out.println( scoringOption );
}
private static void createAndShowGUI()
{
JFrame frame = new JFrame("SSCCE");
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
frame.add(new SSCCE());
frame.pack();
frame.setLocationByPlatform( true );
frame.setVisible( true );
}
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception
{
java.awt.EventQueue.invokeLater( () -> createAndShowGUI() );
}
}
The above is also an example of an "MRE". The code is simple and contained in a single class that you can copy/paste/compile and test.
Read the section from the Swing tutorial on How to Use Dialogs for more examples of using a JOptionPane.
If you really want to use radio buttons, then you can create a panel with the radio buttons and display them on the option pane using the showConfirmDialog(...) method. When the dialog closes you would then need to get the action command from the ButtonModel of the ButtonGroup.
See: how to set & manage the layout of JOptionPane for a basic example of this approach to get you started.

JTextField.getText() inside of actionListener fails to return the proper String

I have run into the issue of not being able to collect the real text from my JTextField when calling getText(). I have provided a simplified version of the code I was running that includes only the aspects of the program to where it will reproduce the issue. I am attempting to collect the text from the JTextField upon the clicking of the button b.
The correct value returned from getText() should be what ever was input, but instead here it simply returns an empty String. In testing I have found that initializing the TJextField with a String will have it return that String no matter what, even if it is changed before pressing the button. and if one uses setText() inside of init() for example, it will continue to return an empty String.
public class TopClass {
public static void main(String[] args){
BottomClass bottom = new BottomClass();
bottom.init();
}
}
import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
public class BottomClass implements ActionListener{
JFrame frame = new JFrame();
JTextField tf = new JTextField();
JButton b = new JButton("BUTTON");
public void init(){
BottomClass bc = new BottomClass();
b.addActionListener((ActionListener) bc);
frame.add(tf, BorderLayout.NORTH);
frame.add(b, BorderLayout.SOUTH);
frame.setSize(100,100);
frame.show();
}
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
System.out.println("TEXT: "+tf.getText());
}
}

Several things aren't clean at all in this code, so I just rewrote most of BottomClass.
You can do it by implementing ActionListener, but BottomClass is more than just an EventListener, so (in the name of realistic responsibility) I just added a new instance of ActionListener to the component that needs it (JButton)
You create an instance bc of BottomClass inside the method init() IN BottomClass. This makes no sense at all and was simply deleted.
You initialize your components at the wrong point. They should either be initialized in the constructor, or inside your nice and fitting init() method. I'm 99% sure that the placement of your initializations is what caused your trouble.
I'm not sure how much of an error this is, but when adding your components you specify BorderLayout constraints despite never defining BorderLayout as the LayoutManager to use. I added the setLayout(new BorderLayout()) call.
It's usually good form to have a constructor, especially if you have a different class calling it. Even if it's empty, a written empty constructor is more easily readable and understandable than an invisible one.
All that said, here's a working version of BottomClass, TopClass doesn't need any adjustments:
import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
public class BottomClass
{
JFrame frame;
JTextField tf;
JButton b;
public BottomClass()
{
// Empty constructor
}
public void init()
{
frame = new JFrame();
frame.setLayout(new BorderLayout());
tf = new JTextField();
b = new JButton("Button");
b.addActionListener(new ActionListener()
{
#Override
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)
{
System.out.println("TEXT: " + tf.getText());
}
});
frame.add(tf, BorderLayout.NORTH);
frame.add(b, BorderLayout.SOUTH);
frame.setSize(100, 100);
frame.setVisible(true);
}
}

Java : using graphics component within an action listener

I've made a JFrame with Diferent JButtons and i'd like to get an image from another class. Any ideas? Or how draw on the same class but on the action performed?
Because it doesnt let me to do any drawings...my complier always gives me error messages
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import java.io.IOException;
import javax.swing.*;
public class red extends JFrame {
public JButton b;
public JButton b1;
public JButton b2;
public JButton b3;
public JButton b4;
public static Image p;
public static Graphics g;
public red() throws IOException {
gui1 x = new gui1();
setTitle(" ");
setSize(1200,700);
setLayout(null);
setDefaultCloseOperation(EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
b= new JButton("click");
b1= new JButton();
b.addActionListener(new ActionListener(){
#Override
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e0){
b1.setBounds(0, 0, 200, 200);
b.show(false);
add(x);
}
});
b.setBounds(0, 0, 100, 100);
add(b1);
add(b);
setVisible(true);
}
public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
red k = new red();
}
}
import java.awt.*;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;
import javax.imageio.ImageIO;
import javax.swing.*;
public class gui1 extends Canvas {
public static Image p;
public void paint(Graphics g){
g.drawImage(p, 700, 200, 100, 100, this);
}
{
try {
p= ImageIO.read(new File("Lighthouse.jpg"));
} catch (IOException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}

Phew! I see A LOT of errors in your code (even after I corrected the compilation errors):
You're not following the Java naming conventions:
Class names should be nouns, in mixed case with the first letter of each internal word capitalized
while red is a noun it should be more descriptive and be capitalized. The same goes for gui1
You're extending JFrame which in plain english would say: red is a JFrame, you should really avoid this and create your GUI based on JPanels instead... see Java Swing using extends JFrame vs callint it inside of class
You're setting size (a REAAAAAAALLY big one window for the JButton sizes you're using), instead use pack()
You're using null-layout, while pixel-perfect GUIs might seem like the easiest way to create complex GUIs for Swing newbies, the more you use them the more problems related to this you'll find in the future, they are hard to maintain and cause random problems, they don't resize, etc. Please read Null layout is evil and Why is it frowned upon to use a null layout in Swing? for more information about why you should avoid its use and why you should change your GUI to work with Layout Managers along with Empty Borders for extra spacing between components.
You're making use of a deprecated method JFrame#show() you should be using JFrame#setVisible(...) instead.
Related to point #4, you shouldn't be calling setBounds(...) method, but let that calculations to the layout managers.
You're not placing your program on the Event Dispatch Thread (EDT), Swing is not thread safe, you can fix this by changing your main() method as follows:
public static void main(String[] args) {
SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
//Your constructor here
}
});
}
You're mixing AWT and Swing components, instead of using AWT's Canvas use Swing's JPanel which has more functionality and support.
Images will become embedded resources once they're packaged in a JAR file, so it's wise to start treating them as if they already were, not as external files as shown in the embedded-resource tag.
Once you change from Canvas to JPanel you should override its paintComponent(...) method and not paint(...) and call it's super.paintComponent(g) method as the first line, also don't forget to add the #Overrides annotation. See the tutorial on Swing custom painting.
You're abusing the use of static keyword, see how does the static keyword works?
After seeing all the above errors I recommend you to go back and Learn the basics of the language before starting with a graphical environment which will only add more difficulty to your learning.
From what I understand you want to draw an image on a button click, if that's the case then you can wrap your image in a JLabel and add that JLabel to a JPanel which then is added to a parent JPanel which is later added to the JFrame:
As you can see in the GIF above, the icon is displayed after user presses the button.
Obviously this can be improved for the GUI to be more "attractive" with combinations of layout managers and empty borders as stated before.
This was done with the following code:
import java.awt.Dimension;
import java.awt.GridLayout;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import javax.swing.BoxLayout;
import javax.swing.ImageIcon;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.SwingUtilities;
public class ImageDrawingFromOneClassToAnother {
private JFrame frame;
private JPanel pane;
private JPanel leftPane;
private JPanel rightPane;
private ImageIcon icon;
private JButton button;
private JLabel label;
public static void main(String[] args) {
SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
new ImageDrawingFromOneClassToAnother().createAndShowGui();
}
});
}
public void createAndShowGui() {
frame = new JFrame(getClass().getSimpleName());
icon = new ImageIcon(this.getClass().getResource("king.png")); //Read images as if they were already embedded resources
button = new JButton("Draw image");
label = new JLabel(""); //Create an empty label
button.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
#Override
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
label.setIcon(icon); //On button click, we set the icon for the empty label
}
});
pane = new JPanel() {
#Override
public Dimension getPreferredSize() {
return new Dimension(300, 200); //Set a size for the main panel
}
};
pane.setLayout(new GridLayout(1, 2)); //The main panel
leftPane = new JPanel(); //The button panel
leftPane.setLayout(new BoxLayout(leftPane, BoxLayout.PAGE_AXIS));
leftPane.add(button);
rightPane = new JPanel(); //The panel where the image will be drawn
rightPane.add(label);
//We add both (button and image) panels to the main panel
pane.add(leftPane);
pane.add(rightPane);
frame.add(pane); //Add the main panel to the frame
frame.pack(); //Calculate its preferred size
frame.setVisible(true); //Set it to be visible
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
}
}

I'm attempting to create a small GUI application, but the contents of the JFrame are not showing on screen. How can I fix my code?

As of late I've been developing a (very) small GUI application in Java. I'm extremely new to Swing and Java in general, but up until now I have been able to get everything to work the way I want it to. However, after cleaning up my code, when I run the program nothing but the border of the window appears. What am I doing wrong and how can I fix my code? Thanks ahead of time!
For the sake of saving space I've made Pastebin links to all of my classes (besides Main).
Main Class
package me.n3rdfall.ezserver.main;
public class Main {
public static GUI g = new GUI();
public static void main(String[] args) {
g.showWindow(800, 500);
}
}
GUI Class
http://pastebin.com/gDMipdp1
ButtonListener Class
http://pastebin.com/4XXm70AD
EDIT: It appears that calling removeAll() directly on 'frame' actually removed essential things other than what I had added. By calling removeAll() on getContentPane(), the issue was resolved.

Quick hack: Remove the removeAll() functions.
public void homePage() {
// frame.removeAll();
// mainpanel.removeAll();
// topbar.removeAll();
I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve, but that will at least show some items. If I were you I would rebuild this GUI by extending JFrame. It will make your code a little easier to read.
I also think what you are trying to achieve with the buttons is to switch layouts, you can do this in an easier way by using CardLayout
Example (has nothing to do with your code, but to demonstrate):
import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.CardLayout;
import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.Container;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
public class Example extends JFrame implements ActionListener {
private JButton leftButton;
private JButton rightButton;
private CardLayout cardLayout = new CardLayout();
JPanel cards = new JPanel(cardLayout);
final static String LEFTPANEL = "LEFTPANEL";
final static String RIGHTPANEL = "RIGHTPANEL";
JPanel card1;
JPanel card2;
public Example() {
JPanel topPanel = new JPanel();
addButtons(topPanel);
add(topPanel, BorderLayout.NORTH);
add(cards, BorderLayout.CENTER);
//Initiates the card panels
initCards();
setTitle("My Window");
setSize(300, 300);
setLocationRelativeTo(null);
setVisible(true);
}
private void initCards() {
card1 = new JPanel();
card2 = new JPanel();
card1.setBackground(Color.black);
card2.setBackground(Color.red);
cards.add(card1, LEFTPANEL);
cards.add(card2, RIGHTPANEL);
}
private void addButtons(Container con) {
leftButton = new JButton("Left Button");
leftButton.addActionListener(this);
rightButton = new JButton("Right Button");
rightButton.addActionListener(this);
con.add(leftButton, BorderLayout.WEST);
con.add(rightButton, BorderLayout.EAST);
}
#Override
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
if(e.getSource().equals(leftButton)) {
//Change cardlayout
cardLayout.show(cards, LEFTPANEL);
} else if(e.getSource().equals(rightButton)) {
//Change cardlayout
cardLayout.show(cards, RIGHTPANEL);
}
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
new Example();
}
}

How to set text above and below a JButton icon?

I want to set text above and below a JButton's icon. At the moment, in order to achieve this, I override the layout manager and use three JLabel instances (i.e. 2 for text and 1 for the icon). But this seems like a dirty solution.
Is there a more direct way of doing this?
Note -I'm not looking for a multi-line solution, I'm looking for a multi-label solution. Although this article refers to it as a multi-line solution, it actually seems to refer to a multi-label solution.
EXAMPLE
import java.awt.Component;
import java.awt.FlowLayout;
import javax.swing.BoxLayout;
import javax.swing.Icon;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.SwingUtilities;
import javax.swing.UIManager;
public final class JButtonDemo {
public static void main(String[] args) {
SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable(){
#Override
public void run() {
createAndShowGUI();
}
});
}
private static void createAndShowGUI(){
final JFrame frame = new JFrame();
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
frame.setLayout(new FlowLayout());
frame.add(new JMultiLabelButton());
frame.pack();
frame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
frame.setVisible(true);
}
private static final class JMultiLabelButton extends JButton
{
private static final long serialVersionUID = 7650993517602360268L;
public JMultiLabelButton()
{
super();
setLayout(new BoxLayout(this, BoxLayout.Y_AXIS));
add(new JCenterLabel("Top Label"));
add(new JCenterLabel(UIManager.getIcon("OptionPane.informationIcon")));
add(new JCenterLabel("Bottom Label"));
}
}
private static final class JCenterLabel extends JLabel
{
private static final long serialVersionUID = 5502066664726732298L;
public JCenterLabel(final String s)
{
super(s);
setAlignmentX(Component.CENTER_ALIGNMENT);
}
public JCenterLabel(final Icon i)
{
super(i);
setAlignmentX(Component.CENTER_ALIGNMENT);
}
}
}

There is not way to split the text between the top/bottom of a JButton. This would involve custom painting.
Since I'm not sure of your exact requirement I'll just through out a few random ideas:
You can use a JButton with text & icon. There are methods in the API that allow you to controal where text is positioned relative to the icon. Then you would need a second label for the other line of text. Basically the same as you current solution but you only need two labels.
You could use the Text Icon and Compound Icon classes to create 1 Icon out of 3 separate Icons. Then you can just add the icon to a button.
Use a JTextPane. Its supports an insertIcon() method. So you could add a line of text, add the icon and then add the other line of text. You can play with the paragraph attributes of the text pane to align the text horizontally within the space if you don't want the text left justified. You can also play with the background color to make it look like a label.
Example using the CompoundIcon:
import java.awt.*;
import javax.swing.*;
public final class JButtonDemo {
public static void main(String[] args) {
SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable(){
#Override
public void run() {
createAndShowGUI();
}
});
}
private static void createAndShowGUI()
{
JButton button = new JButton();
CompoundIcon icon = new CompoundIcon(CompoundIcon.Axis.Y_AXIS,
new TextIcon(button, "Top Label"),
UIManager.getIcon("OptionPane.informationIcon"),
new TextIcon(button, "Bottom Label"));
button.setIcon( icon );
button.setFocusPainted( false );
final JFrame frame = new JFrame();
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
frame.setLayout(new FlowLayout());
frame.add( button );
frame.pack();
frame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
frame.setVisible(true);
}
}

you have two four options
1) use JLabel + Icon + Html (<= Html 3.2)
2) use XxxButtonUI and override all required methods from API
3) JLayeredPane with translucency???, another Layout with translucency, as JLabel or JComponent to the JButton,
4) there are around lots of Graphics SW that can to prepare Background as *.jpg for Icon, then is very simple to change whatever by Event, Action or actual setting for JButton
not correct way is looking for JLabel + Whatever instead of JButton, I think that is halfsized workaround

Find another LayoutManager, here: http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/uiswing/layout/visual.html