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how to put my background image at the bottom

I want to put my background image at the very bottom in this frame, and the button on top. However the code I wrote below doesn't work. Can anyone see where the problems are?
Another thing is that even though I set the location for my button, it keep showing at the top center on the frame.
Please ignore the comment lines. (I was just guessing, and hoping them will work, but they don't apparently.)
public class Menu extends JFrame{
private JLayeredPane pane;
private JLayeredPane pane2;
public Menu(){
final JFrame f = new JFrame("Chinese Chess");
JButton play = new JButton("Play vs. AI");
f.setLayout(new FlowLayout());
f.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
f.setSize(800, 800);
f.setVisible(true);
f.setResizable(false);
//f.pack();
pane = new JLayeredPane();
pane2 = new JLayeredPane();
f.add(pane);
f.add(pane2);
//background image
JLabel background = new JLabel(new ImageIcon("res/img/background.png"));
background.setLocation(0, 0);
background.setSize(800, 800);
pane.add(background, JLayeredPane.FRAME_CONTENT_LAYER);
pane2.add(play, JLayeredPane.DEFAULT_LAYER);
//pane.moveToBack();
//button PlayAI
play.setLocation(500,500);
play.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(100,50));
//f.setLayout(new FlowLayout());
//frame menu
f.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
//f.getContentPane().add(play);
play.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent ae) {
new PlayAI();
}
});
}
public static void main(String[] args){
new Menu();
}

Problems/Solutions:
setLocation(...) and setBounds(...) types of calls are ignored by most layout managers. The only way to use them is to set the layout of the container to null via .setLayout(null);
But having said that, while null layouts and setBounds() might seem to Swing newbies like the easiest and best way to create complex GUI's, the more Swing GUI'S you create the more serious difficulties you will run into when using them. They won't resize your components when the GUI resizes, they are a royal witch to enhance or maintain, they fail completely when placed in scrollpanes, they look gawd-awful when viewed on all platforms or screen resolutions that are different from the original one.
So in sum -- don't do this, don't use null layouts or setBounds, but rather nest JPanels, each using its own layout manager, and thereby create easy to maintain and decent GUI's.
If you want an image to be in the background, then draw it in a JPanel that you use as a container for your GUI components by drawing it in the JPanel's paintComponent(Graphics g) method as has been demonstrated in many many similar questions on this site -- I'll find you some of mine in a second.
If you add any JPanels on top of this image drawing JPanel, be sure that you can see through them by calling setOpaque(false) on these overlying JPanels. Otherwise you'll cover up the image.
Your code has two JFrames when only one is needed. Get rid of the one you don't use.
You call setVisible(true) too early on the JFrame, before components have been added to the GUI -- don't. Call it only after adding everything to the GUI so all display OK.
You're creating two JLayedPanes, and completely covering one by the other by adding them to the JFrame without understanding how the JFrame's BorderLayout handles added components.
I suggest that you not even use one JLayeredPane but instead draw in the JPanel as noted above, and use that as your container.
Your code looks to be opening a completely new GUI window when the play button is pressed, and if so, this can get annoying to the user fast. Consider swapping views instead with a CardLayout.
For example:
import java.awt.Dimension;
import java.awt.Graphics;
import java.awt.GridBagLayout;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.KeyEvent;
import java.awt.image.BufferedImage;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;
import javax.imageio.ImageIO;
import javax.swing.*;
// extend JPanel so you can draw to its background
#SuppressWarnings("serial")
public class Menu2 extends JPanel {
private BufferedImage bgImage = null; // our background image
private JButton playButton = new JButton(new PlayVsAiAction("Play Vs. AI", KeyEvent.VK_P));
public Menu2(BufferedImage bgImage) {
this.bgImage = bgImage;
setLayout(new GridBagLayout()); // center our button
add(playButton);
}
#Override
protected void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
super.paintComponent(g);
if (bgImage != null) {
g.drawImage(bgImage, 0, 0, this);
}
}
// to size our GUI to match a constant or the image.
#Override
public Dimension getPreferredSize() {
if (isPreferredSizeSet()) {
return super.getPreferredSize();
}
// if you want to size it based on the image
if (bgImage != null) {
int width = bgImage.getWidth();
int height = bgImage.getHeight();
return new Dimension(width, height);
} else {
return super.getPreferredSize();
}
// if you want to size the GUI with constants:
// return new Dimension(PREF_W, PREF_H);
}
private class PlayVsAiAction extends AbstractAction {
public PlayVsAiAction(String name, int mnemonic) {
super(name); // have our button display this name
putValue(MNEMONIC_KEY, mnemonic); // alt-key to press button
}
#Override
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
// TODO code to start program
}
}
private static void createAndShowGui() {
BufferedImage img = null;
String imagePath = "res/img/background.png";
try {
// TODO: fix this -- use class resources to get image, not File
img = ImageIO.read(new File(imagePath));
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
System.exit(-1);
}
Menu2 mainPanel = new Menu2(img);
JFrame frame = new JFrame("Chinese Chess");
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.DISPOSE_ON_CLOSE);
frame.getContentPane().add(mainPanel);
frame.pack();
frame.setLocationByPlatform(true);
frame.setVisible(true);
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
SwingUtilities.invokeLater(() -> {
createAndShowGui();
});
}
}

Apart from the solution above... you should create and launch your swing application this way:
public static void main(String[] args) {
//Schedule a job for the event-dispatching thread:
//creating and showing this application's GUI.
javax.swing.SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
createAndShowGUI();
}
});
}
private static void createAndShowGUI() {
// Instantiate your JFrame and show it
}

Adding a jpanel over a jlabel background

I know this question has been asked before but i cant seem to implement any of the other answers to my project. So i have my paint method in my player class here.
public void paintComponent(Graphics g)
{
//makes player(placeholder for real art)
super.paintComponent(g);
g.setColor(Color.GREEN);
g.fillRect(x,y,50,30);
}
Then I have my main class here.
import java.awt.*;
import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
/**
* Write a description of class Main here.
*
* #author Richard Zins
* #V01
*/
public class Main extends JFrame
{
public static void main(String[]args)
{
Player p1 = new Player();
Main m = new Main(p1);
}
public Main(Player p1)
{
JFrame ar = new JFrame();
JLabel background = new JLabel(new ImageIcon("/Users/rizins/Desktop/PacManTestBackGround.jpg"));
ar.setTitle("Runner Maze");
ar.setSize(800,600);
ar.add(background);
ar.setVisible(true);
ar.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
ar.add(p1);
}
}
Now I cant seem to get my player object to paint over my background any help would be appreciated!

There are a couple of mistakes...
JPanel by default is opaque, so you need to change it to be transparent
JFrame uses a BorderLayout by default, so only one component will be shown at the (default) center position, in this case, the last thing you add.
You should call setVisible last
Instead, set a layout manager for the JLabel and add your player class to it. Instead of adding the JLabel to the frame, you should make the label the contentPane for the frame, for example...
p1.setOpaque(false);
JFrame ar = new JFrame();
ar.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
JLabel background = new JLabel(new ImageIcon("/Users/rizins/Desktop/PacManTestBackGround.jpg"));
ar.setTitle("Runner Maze");
ar.setContentPane(background);
ar.setLayout(new BorderLayout());
ar.add(p1);
ar.pack();
ar.setVisible(true);
I should point out that using a JLabel to display a background image like this could cause you problems, as the JLabel only uses the text and icon properties to calculate its preferred size, this could cause some child components to be laid out beyond its visible range.
See How to set a background picture in JPanel for more details and a possible solution

You can make the JPanel transparent by setting the opaque to false. e.g:
panel.setOpaque(false)
Try is if this work for you.

Use a JLayeredPane and add your background at the index 0 (indexed with an Integer not an int). Then you add another JPanel that is not opaque (like in #Bahramdun Adil 's answer) and add your player to that.
This way you can have a background and display your player at the same time.

How to efficiently paint custom JPanel as ViewportView of JScrollPane?

I have a JScrollPane displaying (as its viewport view) MyPanel, a subclass of JPanel.
MyPanel implements custom painting by overloading paintComponent. The total size of the displayable content of MyPanel is generally quite wide (meaning 50x to 200x wider than the size of the JScrollPane viewport) and using a Timer, I scroll horizontally to view different sections of the underlying MyPanel. I also allow using the scroll bar thumb to manually seek to a specific area of MyPanel.
In my paintComponent implementation I am currently finding the portion of MyPanel that is currently visible in the view port using JViewport#getVisibleRect, and just painting that portion each time the view port position is changed.
This works fine - but I end up repainting a significant percentage of the visible portion of MyPanel over and over as the timed scrolling only moves the view port 1/50 of the view port width at a time. Also, I generally end up scrolling through the entire horizontal extent of MyPanel, so I have to paint it all at least once anyway.
That leads me to think about painting the entire contents of MyPanel just once (to a BufferedImage?) and then letting JScrollPane (or JViewport) handle clipping and blitting only the needed area of the BufferedImage.
Intuitively this seems to me to be the most efficient way of handling this, and something that would be relatively common.
As I investigate the Swing tutorials and other sources, I learn that Swing is already double buffered. If I try to force this on my own brute-force, independent of Swing functionality, it sounds like I'll end up with triple-buffering.
I haven't found the recipe (if it exists) to exploit JScrollPane to do this for me.
Is there an example available, or some direction as to how to do this (if possible)?

Swing automatically paints only the smallest necessary area of components for you. repaint(4 args) is only useful when the component is partially changed and you don't want the entire visible area to be repainted. And in your practical, it has the same effect as repaint(no-args).
The auto-clipped area is already small enough for visibility concerns as you described in your question. And you can configure it in your program.
Also, you don't need to worry about the scrolling -- JScrollPane invokes repaint of its children automatically.
You can easily experiment on these:
import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.Dimension;
import java.awt.Graphics;
import java.awt.Rectangle;
import java.util.Random;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.JScrollPane;
public class Test extends JFrame {
private Random rnd = new Random();
private Color c = Color.WHITE;
public Test () {
final JPanel pnl = new JPanel() {
#Override
public void paintComponent (Graphics g) {
super.paintComponent(g);
g.setColor(c);
g.fillRect(0, 0, getWidth(), getHeight());
Rectangle r = g.getClipBounds();
System.out.println(r.width + ", " + r.height);
}
};
pnl.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(10000, 10000));
setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
setSize(400, 400);
setLocationRelativeTo(null);
add(new JScrollPane(pnl));
setVisible(true);
new Thread() {
#Override
public void run () {
while (true) {
c = new Color(rnd.nextInt(0xffffff));
pnl.repaint();
try {
Thread.sleep(100);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {}
}
}
}.start();
}
public static void main (String args[]) {
new Test();
}
}

I can't see my JPanel and its components in the JApplet

I want to put a JPanel in a JApplet, the problem is that I can't see it :( I've overridden the paintComponent of my JPanel in order to have a background image, but I can't see anything. When I remove the paintComponenet method that I had overriden, and set a color to the background of this panel, it seems that JPanel fills the JApplet and still no component is visible :-S I've tried different layouts. I also put my panel in the center of another panel which fills my JApplet but nothing changed, and still no component and no background image is visible :(
import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.Graphics;
import javax.swing.ImageIcon;
import javax.swing.JApplet;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.JScrollPane;
import javax.swing.JTextArea;
public class Main extends JApplet implements Runnable{
private JTextArea display;
private Thread outputThread;
JPanel boardPanel;
private ClientViewManager view;
#Override
public void init() {
try {
javax.swing.SwingUtilities.invokeAndWait(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
createGUI();
}
});
} catch (Exception e) {
System.err.println("createGUI didn't successfully complete");
}
}
private void createGUI() {
display = new JTextArea(4, 30);
display.setEditable(false);
getContentPane().add(new JScrollPane(display), BorderLayout.SOUTH);
setFocusable(true);
setVisible(true);
setName("CE Tanks");
setSize(600, 600);
setLocation(100, 100);
boardPanel = new JPanel();
boardPanel.setLayout(null);
boardPanel.setBackground(new java.awt.Color(128, 255, 255));
getContentPane().add(boardPanel, BorderLayout.CENTER);
}
public void start() {
outputThread = new Thread(this);
outputThread.start();
}
public void run() {
view = new ClientViewManager();
boardPanel.add(view);
boardPanel.repaint();
repaint();
}
}
class ClientViewManager extends JPanel {
private int rows=8;
private int columns=8;
public ClientViewManager() {
super(null);
JLabel lb= new JLabel("lb.jpg");
lb.setLocation(10, 10);
lb.setSize(50, 50);
lb.setOpaque(false);
lb.setVisible(true);
this.add(lb);
}
public void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
g.drawImage(new ImageIcon("ground.jpg").getImage(), 0, 0, columns * 50,
rows * 50, this);
}
}
The code above can be compiled. I cant even add Keylistener to neither my JPanel nor to my JApplet. I used java.awt.KeyEventDispatcher and in dispatchKeyEvent(KeyEvent e) I printed something in console but, it was printed 3 times. :(

I've overridden the paintComponent of my JPanel inorder to have a background image,
But you didn't add the custom component to your applet:
//boardPanel = new JPanel();
boardPanel = new ClientViewManager();
Also:
get rid of setVisible(). This is not required for any of the controls in your program. By default all components except top level Container (Jframe, JDialog etc) are already visible. In the case of JApplet, you don't need to make it visible as this is part of the process of displaying an applet.
get rid of setSize() and setLocation() you can't control the position of the applet this way.
Don't read the image file in the paintComponent() method. This is not efficient as this method is invoked whenever Swing determines the component needs to be repainted.
JLabels are opaque by default so there is not need to invoke the setOpaque method.
When doing custom painting you should also override the getPreferredSize() method of the component to return the proper size of the custom painting so layout managers can use this information. It works in this case because you added the panel to the CENTER of the BorderLayout. Try adding the panel to the NORTH to see what happens.
Edit:
Now I see where you are adding the ClientViewManager. I'm not sure why you are trying to do this with a Thread but once again there are several problems.
When you add/remove components from a visble GUI then the basic code is:
panel.add(...);
panel.revalidate();
panel.repaint();
However this still won't work because you are using a null layout and the size of the panel is 0. Use a proper layout manager and implement the getPreferredSize() method as suggest above and the component will be displayed properly.

I recommend you to use the GUI Builder of Netbeans to build a GUI like that, and then compare the generated code to your code. Netbeans results really useful to help you create swing code.

java panel with png background

i found this link.. LINK what i want is there's a JPanel that has a background and another JPanel with half the size of the first JPanel but with an image that is transparent and with a face or a ball at the middle.. :) just like the screenshot from the link.. is that possible to code in java? :) im just thinking it like for web programming. just a sort of DIV's to have that but i dont know in java.. :) sorry for bad english.. :D i have this as a background..
package waterKing;
import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
#SuppressWarnings("serial")
public class Main extends JFrame {
MainData data = new MainData();
public static void main(String[] args) {
Main frmMain = new Main();
frmMain.setExtendedState(Frame.MAXIMIZED_BOTH);
frmMain.setVisible(true);
}
public Main() {
data.tk = getToolkit();
data.d = data.tk.getScreenSize();
data.jP = new JPanel() {
protected void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
data.e = getSize();
data.iI = new ImageIcon("images/mainBG.png").getImage();
g.drawImage(data.iI,0, 0, data.d.width, data.d.height, null);
super.paintComponent(g);
}
};
data.jP.setOpaque(false);
data.jSp = new JScrollPane(data.jP);
data.jB = new JButton("EXIT");
data.jB.setBounds(10,10,200,40);
data.jB.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
System.exit(0);
}
});
data.jP.setLayout(null);
data.jP.add(data.jB);
this.setTitle("Water King Inventory System");
this.setUndecorated(true);
this.getContentPane();
this.add(data.jSp);
this.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
this.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
}
}
i dont know how to add another JPanel to show in the middle with this background

i dont know how to add another JPanel to show in the middle with this background
Its just like adding components to a panel. You need to use a layout manager and then the component will be positioned properly based on the rules of the layout manager. In your case you can set the layout manager of the background panel to be a BorderLayout. Then you can add a JLabel with the appropriate Icon to the center of the BorderLayout.
You will need to set the preferred size (or override the getPreferredSize() method of your panel since you add it to a scroll pane. Scrollbars will only appear when the preferred size of the panel is greater than the size of the scroll pane.
You should not be reading the image in your paintComponent() method since this method is called multiple times.
You should not be using the "screen size" to determine the width/height of the image because the frame will contain a border. You need to use the size of the panel.
Get rid of all the setBounds() code. Learn to use layout managers.
For a general purpose background panel that takes into account most of the suggestions made here check out Background Panel.