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Make a JDialog always on top of parent (JFrame) but user still can interact with parent

I'm working on building a text editor program like NotePad.
I want to make FindDialog always on top of MainFrame but user still can edit the text at JTextArea in MainFrame as NotePad.
Please help me!!!
I have used method jdialog.setModal(true). It make dialog always on top of parent but user can't edit the text at parent.
Edit: method setAlwaysOnTop() make dialog on top of all windows (include browsers,other programs..) so i can't use it

I have detected that we can use super(parent) to achieve this.
class MyDialog extends JDialog {
public MyDialog(JFrame parent) {
super(parent);
}
/* Other codes */
}

There are various modality types (can be) supported. Use JDialog.setModalityType method and choose the relevant modality type. For more information check out the javadoc here: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/awt/Dialog.html#setModalityType(java.awt.Dialog.ModalityType)
BTW, calling setModal(true) is equivalent to setModalityType(Dialog.ModalityType.MODELESS). In this case user can edit the parent.
So you can try either:
setModalityType(Dialog.ModalityType.DOCUMENT_MODAL)
or as you creating your JDialog pass the modality
new JDialog(parent, "Title", Dialog.ModalityType.DOCUMENT_MODAL);
There is also this useful tutorial about the modality from Oracle:
https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/uiswing/misc/modality.html
Notice that there is a slight difference between Document and Application modal.
Choose the appropriate one for your case.

Removing Cancel Button and "X" From Dialog Box in Swing

I'm currently working on a chess game for a school project. When you promote a pawn, it opens a dialog box that allows the player to select which piece they would like to promote to. However, when the player clicks "cancel" or "X", then the box simply returns null, and the user cannot promote their piece. I was wondering if I could remove/disable the cancel button and the "X" button. Here is my code:
private String createDialog() {
hideLabels();
Object[] options = {"Queen", "Knight", "Bishop", "Rook"};
String selection = (String)JOptionPane.showInputDialog(frame, "What would you like to promote to?, ", "Promote", JOptionPane.PLAIN_MESSAGE, null, options, options[0]);
return selection;
}

Instead of using a JOptionPane which doesn't give you much control over the functionality you can create your own custom JDialog and add your own components and buttons to the dialog.
You can't remove the close button, but you can prevent the close button from doing anything by adding:
dialog.setDefaultCloseOperation(JDialog.DO_NOTHING_ON_CLOSE);
Or if you really want to use a JOptionPane then check out the section from the Swing tutorial on Stopping a Dialog From Closing which shows how you check to make sure a valid value has been entered.

If Statements based on selection from dropdown

I have read through all of the other articles and I am not finding my answers.
I start out with a JOptionPane with object options. When the user selects either animals or habitat another drop down will appears with selections. Right now I am working on getting another pop up with information to open when Lions is selected. But I can't get it to work.
Also I viewed someone else's input to have the ability for these drop downs to appear. But they are using JFrame so another window for java opens up outside of NetBeans.
What I am trying to do right now is enter if statements for selections from dropdown but I don't think it is working correctly. When I run the code and select animals and choose Tigers the window for Lions will pop up and when I say okay the Tigers box pops up. I also need to figure out how to enter a warning statement in some of the selections from dropdown. For health concerns for each animal. I thought about adding a button for additional information but I want to be able to have it automatically pop up. I'm still reading through the API documentation but I just want a simple message dialog to display the information.
public class MonitoringSystem {
public static void main(String[] args){
ImageIcon icon = new ImageIcon(img.class.getResource("zoo.png"));
String[] options = {"Animals", "Habitat", "Exit"};
int x = JOptionPane.showOptionDialog(null, "Zookeepers would you like to view animal activities or monitor habitats?",
"Welcome to the Brooklyn Zoo!", JOptionPane.YES_NO_CANCEL_OPTION, JOptionPane.QUESTION_MESSAGE, icon, options, options[0]);
System.out.println(x);
JFrame animal = new JFrame("Animals");
JFrame habitat = new JFrame("Habitats");
if(x==0){
animal.setVisible(true);
String[] choices = {"Lions","Tigers","Bears","Giraffes",};
String input = (String) JOptionPane.showInputDialog(null,"Select Animal:","Zoo Animals",
JOptionPane.QUESTION_MESSAGE,null,choices,choices[1]);
if ("Lions".equals(choices));
JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, "Animal: Lion\nName: Leo\nAge: 5 \nFeeding Schedule: Twice daily");
{
}
if("Tigers".equals(choices));
JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, "Animal: Tiger\nName: Maj\nAge: 15 \nFeeding Schedule: 3x daily");

if(choice=="Lions")
Don't use "==" for Object comparison.
Instead use the String.equals(...) method.
I start out with a JOptionPane with object options
Sound reasonable. You create an Array of String options and use the showOptionPane(...) method.
Right now I am working on getting another pop up with information to open when Lions is selected
So why are you using showInputDialog(...) this time?
If showOptionPane(...) worked before why are you changing methods?
JFrame animal = new JFrame("Animals");
JFrame habitat = new JFrame("Habitats");
What is the point of those statements?
Read the section from the Swing tutorial on How to Make Dialogs for more examples of using a JOptionPane.
If you are just trying to display information about a Lion. then add the text to a JTextArea and then display the JTextArea in the JOptionPane. You can add any Swing component to an JOptionPane. Read the JOptionPane API.

how to ensure that JDialog always stays on top

I have a JDialog that takes a name from the user. Behind the JDialog, is an applet. I dont want the user to access that applet until he has entered the name. I tried JDialog.setAlwaysOnTop(true), but the applet throws an AccessException error. So what I did was keep a while loop that will execute JDialog.setVisible(true) till the JtextField(input for user name) is empty (""). But for some reason this works really slow, meaning the JDialog loads, but it takes time to focus on the JTextField and even when the user types his name, it comes really slow... like one character in 2 seconds... Is there any other way for me to force the user to enter the name before accessing the applet?

Use a modal JDialog. For example the code in your init(...) method of JApplet might include:
JDialog dialog = new JDialog(SwingUtilities.windowForComponent(this));
dialog.setModal(true);
dialog.setSize(...);
dialog.setVisible( true );
Or you can just use a JOptionPane.showInputDialog(). Again you would just specify "this" as the parent component of the option pane.

Another option would be:
frame.setAlwaysOnTop(true);
It forces the dialog on top of any other.

It runs slowly because the program is processing that foo loop
What you can do is to add a window listener and then the jdialog lost it's focus ( or the applet gains it ) return the focus to the jdialog.
This should perform much better than the for loop you're using right now

java wait for dialog to be closed

i have a small program where an element is draged and dropped, when the drop is performed i open a dialog (extends Jframe) where some text should be entered. The Problem is, that i want to wait for this dialog to be closed (actually the ok button to be pressed so i can read out the data from the textfield), than analyse what the user has entered and based on that i will decide if the drop is rejected or allowed.
public void drop(DropTargetDropEvent e) {
try{
//popup
Popup p = new Popup();
p.setParmeter("enter a new name: ");
p.setVisible(true);
//programm wont wait before the user has pressed ok in the popup
System.out.println("value: " + p.getValue());
repaint();
} else {
e.rejectDrop();
}
}
I hope you get the idea. Popup is a dialog extended from a JFrame. The problem is, that p.getValue() is executed before the User gets to press the ok button. I tried using a boolean variable and a loop to check if something was entered in the popup but it doesnt work, the dialog is desplayed but there is not textfield or ok button, so the only thing i can do is to kill it. I'm pretty new to gui's so i really would appreciate the help. Thanks in advance.

If possible you should re-implement Popup to inherit from JDialog instead of JFrame, and call JDialog's setModal(true) method, which will prevent subsequent code from running until the dialog is dismissed.
Alternatively, check out the static convenience methods in JOptionPane, which eliminate the need to implement your own bespoke dialog class in many cases. For example (from the JOptionPane API):
Show an information panel with the options yes/no and message 'choose one':
JOptionPane.showConfirmDialog(null, "choose one", "choose one", JOptionPane.YES_NO_OPTION);

Java has built-in dialog support. Yon don't want to extend JFrame. See the tutorial on how to make dialogs.