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Switching Two JPanels on same JFrame [duplicate]

I seem to not be able to find a way to get my code to work.
I am making a program and until now everything was working, i have some buttons and they do what they should.
But now i added a button that when a user click it, it should close the current GUI and open a new one.
I also want to point out that i created a new class for this new GUI.
The other GUI class that i want to call is the GuiCrafting, in that class the GUI is also all coded, and works if i call it on the Main.
My question is what do i type here (I tried a lot of things like dispose() etc but i just get error messages) :
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent event) {
if( str.equals("Crafting")){
//insert code to call the GuiCrafting class and open his GUI
}
Thanks in advance and if you need something more please let me know.

Multiple JFrames are frowned upon as you can read about here and here
Perhaps what you want to use is a CardLayout which manages two or more components (usually JPanel instances) that share the same display space.
After clicking the button "Goto Card 2"
TestApp.java:
import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.CardLayout;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.SwingUtilities;
public class TestApp {
final static String CARD1 = "Card1";
final static String CARD2 = "Card2";
public TestApp() {
initComponents();
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
SwingUtilities.invokeLater(TestApp::new);
}
private void initComponents() {
JFrame frame = new JFrame("TestApp");
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
// create the panel that contains the "cards".
JPanel cards = new JPanel(new CardLayout());
// card 1 components
JButton buttonGotoCard2 = new JButton("Goto Card 2");
buttonGotoCard2.addActionListener((ActionEvent e) -> {
CardLayout cl = (CardLayout) (cards.getLayout());
cl.show(cards, CARD2);
});
// create card 1
JPanel card1 = new JPanel();
card1.add(new JLabel("Card 1"));
card1.add(buttonGotoCard2);
// card 2 components
JButton buttonGotoCard1 = new JButton("Goto Card 1");
buttonGotoCard1.addActionListener((ActionEvent e) -> {
CardLayout cl = (CardLayout) (cards.getLayout());
cl.show(cards, CARD1);
});
// create card 2
JPanel card2 = new JPanel();
card2.add(new JLabel("Card 2"));
card2.add(buttonGotoCard1);
// add cards to cards panel
cards.add(card1, CARD1);
cards.add(card2, CARD2);
frame.getContentPane().add(cards, BorderLayout.CENTER);
frame.pack();
frame.setVisible(true);
}
}
There is also a JDialog which could be what you want.
HOWEVER
You can easily do something like that (Open a JFrame from another If you must):
TestApp.java:
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.WindowAdapter;
import javax.swing.BoxLayout;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.SwingUtilities;
import javax.swing.border.EmptyBorder;
public class TestApp {
public TestApp() {
initComponents();
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
SwingUtilities.invokeLater(TestApp::new);
}
private void initComponents() {
JFrame mainFrame = new JFrame();
mainFrame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
JPanel panel = new JPanel();
panel.setLayout(new BoxLayout(panel, BoxLayout.Y_AXIS));
panel.setBorder(new EmptyBorder(10, 10, 10, 10));
JLabel label = new JLabel("JFrame 1");
JButton button = new JButton("Open JFrame 2");
button.addActionListener((ActionEvent e) -> {
this.showNewJFrame(new WindowAdapter() {
#Override
public void windowClosing(java.awt.event.WindowEvent e) {
// here we listen for the second JFrame being closed so we can bring back the main JFrame
mainFrame.setVisible(true);
}
});
// hide the main JFrame
mainFrame.setVisible(false);
});
panel.add(label);
panel.add(button);
mainFrame.add(panel);
mainFrame.pack();
mainFrame.setVisible(true);
}
private void showNewJFrame(WindowAdapter windowAdapter) {
JFrame frame2 = new JFrame();
frame2.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.DISPOSE_ON_CLOSE); // we dont wnat to exit when this JFrame is closed
JPanel panel2 = new JPanel();
panel2.setLayout(new BoxLayout(panel2, BoxLayout.Y_AXIS));
panel2.setBorder(new EmptyBorder(10, 10, 10, 10));
JLabel label2 = new JLabel("JFrame 2");
panel2.add(label2);
frame2.add(panel2);
frame2.addWindowListener(windowAdapter);
frame2.pack();
frame2.setVisible(true);
}
}
This produces:
and when the "Open JFrame 2" is clicked:
and when JFrame 2 is closed it brings back the main JFrame via the WindowAdapter#windowClosing.

How to leave MouseListener on ChildComponent but correctly keep track of mouse enter and exit on parent?

I have a JPanel with a CardLayout and two cards. I want the layout to flip the cards each time the mouse enters or exits the panel.
This works fine unless one of the cards is a component that listens for mouse events. Consider the following example:
JPanel cardLayoutPanel = new JPanel(layout);
JButton button = new JButton("listening!");
JLabel label = new JLabel("not listening.");
cardLayoutPanel.add(button);
cardLayoutPanel.add(label);
layout.last(cardLayoutPanel);
cardLayoutPanel.addMouseListener(new MouseAdapter() {
#Override
public void mouseEntered(MouseEvent e) {
System.out.println("entered!");
layout.next(cardLayoutPanel);
}
#Override
public void mouseExited(MouseEvent e) {
System.out.println("exited!");
layout.next(cardLayoutPanel);
}
});
The problem is that, if the MouseEvent is catched by a child component, it is not processed by the parent as a read in many SO-questions related to this topic.
I tried different things like redispatching the event or just ignoring the exit event if the event if the event coordinates are still in the panel.
The first solution does not work at all, the second neither since then the mouse entered event does not occur anymore.
How can i solve this?
The only solution that I see right now would be to completely remove the listener from the child component and perform the collision and event handling on my own in the parents mouse mouse listener, but this would be a mess and not the intended way to do this, i guess.
Any help or ideas appreciated.
EDIT: here is a complete short compilable example:
import javax.swing.*;
import javax.swing.border.EmptyBorder;
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.MouseAdapter;
import java.awt.event.MouseEvent;
public class CardLayoutTest {
public static void main(String[] args) {
JFrame frame = new JFrame();
JPanel content = new JPanel();
content.setBorder(new EmptyBorder(new Insets(50, 50, 50, 50)));
CardLayout layout = new CardLayout();
JPanel cardLayoutPanel = new JPanel(layout);
JButton button = new JButton("listening!");
JLabel label = new JLabel("not listening.");
cardLayoutPanel.add(button);
cardLayoutPanel.add(label);
layout.last(cardLayoutPanel);
cardLayoutPanel.addMouseListener(new MouseAdapter() {
#Override
public void mouseEntered(MouseEvent e) {
System.out.println("entered!");
layout.next(cardLayoutPanel);
}
#Override
public void mouseExited(MouseEvent e) {
System.out.println("exited!");
layout.next(cardLayoutPanel);
}
});
content.add(cardLayoutPanel);
frame.add(content);
frame.pack();
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
frame.setVisible(true);
}
}

I modified your example slightly and got it to work. The key (at least in this example), was to have the button share the same mouseListener with the cardLayoutPanel. I do not know if this is a universal solution but it does work here. I also made the following changes:
added a private innner class for the mouseListener.
Increased the size of the cardLayoutPanel.
Added color borders to the Label and Button.
import java.awt.CardLayout;
import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.Dimension;
import java.awt.Insets;
import java.awt.event.MouseAdapter;
import java.awt.event.MouseEvent;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.border.EmptyBorder;
import javax.swing.border.LineBorder;
public class CardLayoutTest {
JButton button = new JButton("listening!");
JPanel cardLayoutPanel = new JPanel();
CardLayout layout = new CardLayout();
public static void main(String[] args) {
new CardLayoutTest().start();
}
public void start() {
JFrame frame = new JFrame();
JPanel content = new JPanel();
content.setBorder(new EmptyBorder(
new Insets(50, 50, 50, 50)));
cardLayoutPanel.setLayout(layout);
cardLayoutPanel
.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(200, 200));
button.addActionListener(
ae -> System.out.println("IT WORKS!"));
button.removeMouseMotionListener(
button.getMouseMotionListeners()[0]);
button.removeMouseListener(
button.getMouseListeners()[0]);
MyMouseListener ml = new MyMouseListener();
button.addMouseListener(ml);
button.setBorder(new LineBorder(Color.red, 2));
JLabel label = new JLabel("not listening.");
label.setBorder(new LineBorder(Color.blue, 2));
cardLayoutPanel.add(button);
cardLayoutPanel.add(label);
layout.last(cardLayoutPanel);
cardLayoutPanel.addMouseListener(ml);
content.add(cardLayoutPanel);
frame.add(content);
frame.pack();
frame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(
JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
frame.setVisible(true);
}
private class MyMouseListener extends MouseAdapter {
#Override
public void mouseEntered(MouseEvent e) {
System.out.println("entered!");
layout.next(cardLayoutPanel);
}
public void mouseClicked(MouseEvent e) {
if (e.getSource() instanceof JButton) {
JButton b = (JButton)(e.getSource());
b.doClick();
}
}
#Override
public void mouseExited(MouseEvent e) {
System.out.println("exited!");
layout.next(cardLayoutPanel);
}
}
}

It is not quiet a good solution but i managed to achieve what i want by calling the flip event when entering the parent component. This works since i have enough space between my panels with this property.
I did not, however, managed to achieve this effect with glass panes as suggested in a comment. Maybe I was doing it wrong, but the events did not arrive at the components properly, even some instanceof checks failed out of nowhere.
If someone knows how to do this properly I would be glad to see.

How do I get focus for a keypress in a CardLayout?

I had a CardLayout example working correctly with a button, then tried to convert it to work with keypress. I think the problem is that I don't have focus, but I can't set the focus to frame or panel successfully. Thanks!
I tried requestFocusInWindow from the frame and from the first panel shown, and that didn't help. I asked frame.getFocusOwner() and it returned null.
I thought that CardLayout would give the focus to the top element automatically, but while that worked when I had a button, it is not working now.
public class MyCardLayoutExample3 {
public static void main(String[] args){
MyCardLayoutExample3 game = new MyCardLayoutExample3();
game.display();
}
void display() {
JFrame frame = new JFrame();
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
frame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
frame.setSize(300, 200);
CardLayout cardLayout = new CardLayout();
frame.getContentPane().setLayout(cardLayout);
MyGamePanel3 mgp3 = new MyGamePanel3("minigame A", Color.red);
frame.getContentPane().add(mgp3);
frame.getContentPane().add(new MyGamePanel3("minigame B", Color.green));
frame.getContentPane().add(new MyGamePanel3("minigame C", Color.blue));
frame.setVisible(true);
System.out.println("owner: " + frame.getFocusOwner()); //this prints null
}
}
class MyGamePanel3 extends JPanel implements KeyListener{
MyGamePanel3(String text, Color bg){
JLabel textLabel = new JLabel(text);
this.setBackground(bg);
this.add(textLabel);
}
#Override
public void keyTyped(KeyEvent e) {}
#Override
public void keyPressed(KeyEvent e) {
System.out.println("keyPressed worked");
}
#Override
public void keyReleased(KeyEvent e) {}
}

Changing to key bindings made the example work easily, thanks Abra. I never got the keyListener to work, despite trying the links above and many other links.
import java.awt.CardLayout;
import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import javax.swing.AbstractAction;
import javax.swing.Action;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.KeyStroke;
import javax.swing.WindowConstants;
class MyGamePanel extends JPanel{
MyGamePanel(ActionListener alNext, String text, Color bg){
JButton buttonNext = new JButton("next");
buttonNext.addActionListener(alNext);
JLabel textLabel = new JLabel(text);
this.setBackground(bg);
this.add(textLabel);
this.add(buttonNext);
}
}
public class MyCardLayoutKeyBindingExample {
public static void main(String[] args){
MyCardLayoutKeyBindingExample game = new MyCardLayoutKeyBindingExample();
game.display();
}
void display() {
JFrame frame = new JFrame();
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(WindowConstants.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
frame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
frame.setSize(300, 200);
CardLayout cardLayout = new CardLayout();
//frame.getContentPane().setLayout(cardLayout);
JPanel mainPanel = new JPanel(cardLayout);
frame.add(mainPanel);
ActionListener al1 = e -> cardLayout.next(mainPanel);
mainPanel.add(new MyGamePanel(al1, "minigame A", Color.red));
mainPanel.add(new MyGamePanel(al1, "minigame B", Color.green));
mainPanel.add(new MyGamePanel(al1, "minigame C", Color.blue));
mainPanel.getInputMap().put(KeyStroke.getKeyStroke("SPACE"), "space");
Action kp = new AbstractAction() {
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
System.out.println("key pressed");
}
};
mainPanel.getActionMap().put("space", kp);
frame.setVisible(true);
}
}

Prevent JPanel within JScrollPane from growing horizontally

I have a JPanel with FlowLayout that I'm dynamically filling with identical components (JButtons in the MWE). The JPanel is inside a JScrollPane. As I add components, I'd like them to fill left to right, kicking down to the next row once the top row would become wider than the JScrollPane.
My problem is that FlowLayout is instead widening the JPanel ad nauseum, to which the JScrollPane responds by adding a horizontal scroll. How do I prevent this?
Edit: I've seen WrapLayout; I was hoping for a solution within standard Java since I'm using NetBeans GUI Builder for my application.
MWE based on this answer:
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import java.awt.*;
import javax.swing.JScrollPane;
public class MWE extends JFrame implements ActionListener {
JPanel panel;
JScrollPane pane;
public MWE() {
super("Add component on JFrame at runtime");
setLayout(new BorderLayout());
this.panel = new JPanel();
this.pane = new JScrollPane();
this.panel.setLayout(new FlowLayout(FlowLayout.LEFT));
this.pane.setViewportView(this.panel);
add(pane, BorderLayout.CENTER);
JButton button = new JButton("CLICK HERE");
add(button, BorderLayout.SOUTH);
button.addActionListener(this);
setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
setSize(500, 500);
setVisible(true);
}
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent evt) {
this.panel.add(new JButton("Button"));
this.panel.revalidate();
validate();
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
MWE mwe = new MWE();
}
}

Try setting a preferred size for the panel :
this.panel.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(500, 500));

How can I switch focus to a canvas?

I have this class and I want to switch focus to the Game class right after it was invoked. I might've not understand the purpose of focus but when I press start I have to click on the game canvas itself so I can use the keyboard . In other words: How can I make it so I don't have to click on it to use the keyboard?
package com.runner.panels;
import java.awt.CardLayout;
import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import com.runner.main.Game;
import com.runner.main.Main;
public class PlayPanel extends JPanel{
private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;
public PlayPanel(){
//setting the layout of the playpanel to null
setLayout(null);
//setting up the info panel : high score, meters ran, pause button etc...
JPanel info = new JPanel();
info.setBounds(0,0,1200,50);
add(info);
//back button
JButton back = new JButton("Back");
info.add(back);
Game game = new Game();
game.setBounds(0,50,1200,521);
game.setBackground(Color.black);
add(game);
back.addActionListener(new ActionListener(){
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
CardLayout cl = (CardLayout) Main.mainp.getLayout();
cl.show(Main.mainp, "Menu");
}
});
}
}

Off topic: (kinda)
The fact that you are doing Main.mainp.getLayout();, calling the panel statically tells me you have poor design and should be looking into other options like an Model-view-controller pattern, an Observer pattern, or at the very least passing a reference of of the Main to the panel, instead of using static objects/calls.
Back on topic
Sounds like a common KeyListener problem. Generally to gain focus you call requestFocusInWindow(). But you still have to worry about other components stealing the focus way after the fact.
I would instead recommend using Key Bindings instead of KeyListener. You have more control over the focus. For instance, by using
InputMap im = panel.getInputMap(JComponent.WHEN_IN_FOCUSED_WINDOW);
im.put(KeyStroke.getKeyStroke("SPACE"), "hitSpace");
panel.getActionMap().put("hitSpace", new AbstractAction(){
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
// do something.
}
});
The panel will have immediate access to the action once you show it from the CardLayout. If you happen to use any other components that would steal the focus away from the panel, the action is still accessible because of the WHEN_IN_FOCUSED_WINDOW input map
Here's a simple example. Type A if it is on panel A, you will see it print. If you type B, it won't print because panel A is in the window. Also if you try and press the button in the panel to steal the focus, you can still type and it will still print. Same goes for panel B
import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.CardLayout;
import java.awt.Dimension;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import javax.swing.AbstractAction;
import javax.swing.InputMap;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JComponent;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.KeyStroke;
import javax.swing.SwingUtilities;
public class Main {
CardLayout layout = new CardLayout();
JPanel panel = new JPanel(layout);
JPanel p1 = new JPanel() {
#Override
public Dimension getPreferredSize() {
return new Dimension(300, 300);
}
};
JPanel p2 = new JPanel() {
#Override
public Dimension getPreferredSize() {
return new Dimension(300, 300);
}
};
JButton b1 = new JButton("panelA");
JButton b2 = new JButton("panelB");
public Main() {
addKeyBind(p1, "pressA", "A");
addKeyBind(p2, "pressB", "B");
p1.add(new JButton("Button for Panel A"));
p2.add(new JButton("Button for Panel B"));
panel.add(p1, "panelA");
panel.add(p2, "panelB");
b1.addActionListener(new ActionListener(){
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
show("panelA");
}
});
b2.addActionListener(new ActionListener(){
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
show("panelB");
}
});
JPanel buttonPanel = new JPanel();
buttonPanel.add(b1);
buttonPanel.add(b2);
JFrame frame = new JFrame();
frame.add(panel);
frame.add(buttonPanel, BorderLayout.PAGE_END);
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
frame.pack();
frame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
frame.setVisible(true);
}
public void show(String panelName) {
layout.show(panel, panelName);
}
private void addKeyBind(JComponent comp, String name, final String stroke) {
InputMap im = comp.getInputMap(JComponent.WHEN_IN_FOCUSED_WINDOW);
im.put(KeyStroke.getKeyStroke(stroke), name);
comp.getActionMap().put(name, new AbstractAction(){
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
System.out.println(stroke + " pressed");
}
});
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable(){
public void run() {
new Main();
}
});
}
}
Take some time to go over the link I gave you for Key Bindings to learn more.
Back off-topic
Take a look at #AndrewThompson's comment about the null layouts. Learn how to use the LayoutManagers

I believe your problem would be fixed if you add
setFocusable(true);
to your PlayPanel constructor (works for me).
Also, if you want a specific Panel in your GUI to have focus when you start your application, follow the link in the comment of "user3218114", as this will explain how to implement this functionality with Listeners.
Good luck!

You don't need to do anything. The container should be focusable for that.
Here is a code to demonstrate.
package one;
import java.awt.Canvas;
import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.Graphics;
import java.awt.event.FocusEvent;
import java.awt.event.FocusListener;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
public class PlayPanel extends Canvas {
public static void main(String... args) {
PlayPanel p = new PlayPanel();
p.addFocusListener(new FocusListener() {
#Override
public void focusGained(FocusEvent e) {
p.msg = "Focus gained";
p.repaint();
}
#Override
public void focusLost(FocusEvent e) {
p.msg = "Focus Lost";
p.repaint();
}
});
p.setBackground(Color.GRAY);
JFrame f = new JFrame();
f.add(p);
f.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
f.setSize(300, 200);
f.setLocation(300, 300);
f.setVisible(true);
}
String msg = "NO FOCUS";
public void paint(Graphics g) {
g.drawString(msg, 50, 50);
}
}