Netbeans GUI Designer & Fixed-Size Application Panels - java

I'm having a problem, creating a fixed-size overall panel for a touchscreen GUI application that has to take up the entire screen. In a nutshell, the touchscreen is 800 x 600 pixels, and therefore I want the main GUI panel to be that size.
When I start a new GUI project in NetBeans, I set the properties of the main panel for min/max/preferred size to 800 x 600, and the panel within the 'Design' view changes size. However, when I launch the app, it is resized to the original default size.
Adding this code after initComponents() does not help:
this.mainPanel.setSize(new Dimension(800,600));
this.mainPanel.setMaximumSize(new Dimension(800,600));
this.mainPanel.setMinimumSize(new Dimension(800,600));
this.mainPanel.repaint();
I've peeked into all of the resource files and cannot seem to find values that would override these (which seems somewhat impossible anyway, given that I'm setting them after initComponents() does its work). I'm using the FreeDesign layout, because I wanted complete control over where I put things.
I suspect the layout manager is resizing things based upon how many widgets I have on the screen, because different prototyped screens come in at differing sizes.
Help is appreciated!

Have you tried java full screen mode?

I use this method to complete the task, not sure if its the best and you need to wait calling it until the frame is actually on the screen.
protected void growBig()
{
int screenWidth = java.awt.Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getScreenSize().width;
int screenHeight = java.awt.Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getScreenSize().height;
Rectangle rectangle = getFrame().getBounds();
rectangle.setSize(screenWidth, screenHeight);
getFrame().setBounds(0, 0, screenWidth, screenHeight);
getFrame().setSize(screenWidth, screenHeight);
getFrame().doLayout();
getFrame().validate();
updateUI();
}

I'm not sure how your touchscreen device works. But if you use Netbeans preview your panel is put in some outer container like JFrame/JWindow. And just maybe you set the frame to 800x600.
If so, then the problem might be that the frame eats a few pixels for its own border, leaving your panel size < 800x600. And in that case your panel will be unable to use your min/max settings and revert to default sizes.

Related

adapt windows and its content to screen size in java

I have designed a java program that open in its main file a JFrame, where different panel are then opened. I found that using the program of different machine with different screen size it can be that some panel are "cut" and , for instance I loose some bottom in the panels.
What is the better designing solution to solve this issue?
Thanks in advance to who can help.
I dont know if this sounds like a 'better' solution (btw. better than what?), but like DreadHeadedDeveloper already said you can use toolkits.
Also, you can put everything on one panel and put that panel onto a scrollpane, which puts on scrollbars, if the screen is too small.
I dont know if you can make a final size or if you want to be able to resize it (which is often more trouble than it's worth).
What does: "where different panel are then opened" mean?
Should these panels be next to each other, or do they overlap? Do they change the size of your frame?
Quite frankly, use QT or something like JavaFX, maybe Grails or anything but swing really but this is besides the point.
Anyway, for this you use LayoutManagers to reposition your elements for you. By using:
Dimension screenSize = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getScreenSize();
double width = screenSize.getWidth();
double height = screenSize.getHeight();
you can get your screensize, after which you can give subpanels percentage based sizes. Say screenheight is 800, you can pass 800*0.40 if you want 40% of the parent height as the height for a child panel through the constructor of the panel.
Something like MyPanel extends Panel
public MyPanel(int width, int height){
this.setSize(width,height);
}
The downside of layoutmanagers is that they can squish your components somewhat. I sincerely hope this at least helped you on your way to finding your answer!

How to output java full screen properly

Now what I am doing in my program is that I am using setundecorated = true and MAXIMIZED_BOTH So it makes it go full screen and the display looks very nice, But the problem is that there are images (border) on the left and the right side of my screen and also a blue background. What happens is that in changing screens and resolutions these get disturbed and are not shown properly. Those grey patches come up again
History:
I have a java program which I wanted to always open in full screen; I was not able to find a way to do it properly so I had adjusted the minimum to (1370, 727) and maximum size. Thus, it started opening properly on my laptop, but when I changed my laptop's display to LCD, it started giving problems:
It opens in a smaller window:
If I then click on the maximize button, a grey area comes on the side and bottom (I wanted the items on screen to get stretched or center themselves):
And here for example, there is a grey patch at the bottom. Instead, I want the background to cover the whole screen.
Update 1
If I change to stretchable gridbaglayout, this is the code I used and what happens:
Menu.setExtendedState(MAXIMIZED_BOTH);
GridBagLayout gbl = new GridBagLayout();
Menu.setLayout(gbl);
JButton component = new JButton("1");
gbl.layoutContainer(Menu);
GridBagConstraints gbc = new GridBagConstraints();
gbc.fill = GridBagConstraints.NONE;
gbl.setConstraints(component, gbc);
Menu.add(component);
Menu.pack();
Menu.setVisible(true);
Question
How do I set "this" frame to setExtendedState(MAXIMIZED_BOTH) as I have done to others? (if I do this in main function, I get an error; even if I make a function for this and call it in main I get an error)
How do I get everything to stretch/rearrange themselves according to the extra grey space?
Update 2
My files in this project:
Update 3
This is the current file I am working on "FormTTS.java"
Search for "MAXIMIZED_BOTH" in there and you will find the code I think you will want to check.
Usually, as far as games go, it's preferable to use full screen mode instead of using a maximized window. You can do this in Java by using:
GraphicsEnvironment gfxEnv = GraphicsEnvironment.getLocalGraphicsEnvironment();
GraphicsDevice gfxDev = gfxEnv.getDefaultScreenDevice();
Window window = new GameWindow();
gfxDev.setFullScreenWindow(window);
If you still want to use a regular frame and center the content panel, you need to define some of the GridBagLayout constraints. It's impossible to tell which without out seeing the code for the rest of the components on that screen, but consider the following:
GridBagConstraints.fill
GridBagConstraints.anchor
GridBagConstraints.weightx
GridBagConstraints.weighty
And finally, regarding setting the screen to the largest size, it is already addressed here:
Java JFrame Size according to screen resolution
I am also having same requirement as you have, below code works for me.
Dimension d = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getScreenSize();
setBounds(0,0,d.width,d.height); // i assume you have extended JFrame
try this, hope it works for you as well.
MyFrame mFrame= new MyFrame();
mFrame.setVisible(true);
mFrame.setExtendedState(mFrame.getExtendedState() | JFrame.MAXIMIZED_BOTH);
I know this is a terrible answer because I don't have time to write any code. Have you tried creating a listener so you can get the proper maximum size once the window is actually created, and then setting the GridBagConstraints weightx and weighty properties accordingly?
Did you try this code
JFrame frame = new JFrame();
frame.setSize(Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getScreenSize());
frame.setVisible(true);
You can get full screen size of any device by "Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getScreenSize()" in java. Above code I set frame size to fullscreen.
int height = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getScreenSize().height;
int width = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getScreenSize().width;
You can get hight and width of screen to your code by using above codes. I think this will be a help.
You can easily call
setExtendedState(MAXIMIZED_BOTH); on jframe or
use bellow code to set screen size to any PC.
//size of the screen
Dimension screenSize = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getScreenSize();
//height of the task bar
Insets scnMax = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getScreenInsets(getGraphicsConfiguration());
int taskBarSize = scnMax.bottom;
//available size of the screen
setSize(screenSize.width, screenSize.height - taskBarSize);
setLocation(screenSize.width - getWidth(), screenSize.height - taskBarSize - getHeight());
if u want you can remove taskbar size to get full screen anyway this is the code and this will help you.
Try setting image as a background to you JFrame. So it will adjust with frame size
How to set Jframe Background Image in GroupLayout Java
so even in full screen it will be adjusting..
if you use panel then you can resize according to panel, it shows in full panel size
yourinternalframe.setSize(mainPanel.getSize());
yourinternalframe.show();
this may be not seem as your real need, you may do something according to this
I took a look at the code that you attached for FormTTS.java, what I found out is that your screen was set as using the absolute layout hardcoded to some numbers of pixels.
Look at the following code:
Menu.getContentPane().setLayout(new org.netbeans.lib.awtextra.AbsoluteLayout());
Menu.getContentPane().add(jPanel3, new org.netbeans.lib.awtextra.AbsoluteConstraints(420, 230, 530, 320));
Your JFrame is not using the GridBagLayout, instead it's using AbsoluteLayout from Netbeans library. So I guess you generated these UI codes with the tools from Netbeans.
And then regarding your picture that does not fill all the screen when maximized:
jLabel9.setIcon(new javax.swing.ImageIcon(getClass().getResource("/freetts/equations.png")));
Menu.getContentPane().add(jLabel9, new org.netbeans.lib.awtextra.AbsoluteConstraints(0, 0, 1530, 990));
Same problem here, it's hardcoded to some numbers of pixels.
If you want everything to be centered when you maximized your screen, I think the only way to do is to use the gridbag layout for your JFrame and this requires you to update almost everything in your code. And you will need to fully understand how GridBagLayout works. Here is the place to start.
However if you only want the background image to fill the screen you can follow the steps here to let the picture scaled to fill the size of JLabel:
Resize a picture to fit a JLabel
If it still doesn't work, you should also get the size of the screen (from one of the answers here) and then set the prefferedSize of the JLabel with those values in addition of scaling the image.
To add on to #eitanfar's answer, the best way of enabling fullscreen in Java is using the FSEM (FullScreen Exclusive Mode) API.
As he stated, this is achieved by setting the windows as fullscreen on the GraphicsDevice you want the window to appear fullscreen on, usually the default one. Even if your device does not support FSEM (id est isFullscreenSupported() returns false), setting the window as fullscreen will still partially work as the API will emulate fullscreen. The only safety check is to verify whether the GraphicsEnvironment is headless (isHeadless()). If it is, then there are no devices to display to.
The advantage FSEM gives you is that all graphics processing is run on the GPU (the GraphicsDevice is the GPU, not the monitor), therefore making it faster on most systems. In your program's options, you can allow the user to choose to enable or not FSEM so that they can run at optimal performance.
However, the system's repaint events are undefined when in FSEM, you're better off using active rendering, therefore you're better off ignoring repaint (setIgnoreRepaint(true)) and then using a custom thread for drawing.
I am having a similar problem with my application. the nearest I have come is to set all components that reside on top to either component.setOpaque(false), or component.setBackground(new Color(255,255,255,0)). you could also try panel.setVisible(false) for the unused panels.
its hard to offer up code with out the entire program but give this a whirl:
Menu.setBackground(new Color(255,255,255,0);

scaling up the contents whenver window size increases or decreases

Is there any possibilities to scale the contents of the J Frame For Example : if im giving the initial setSize(800,1000) in which i placed the textfields,labels,buttons etc..as per the size 800,1000 the application looks good,suppose im maximizing the window of the Frame, automatically the textfields,labels,buttons are kept in the static way...how to scale it when the maximize is pressed the entire contents are cleanly arranged in good manner..kindly give me solution to solve this issue
if im giving the initial setSize(800,1000) in which i placed the
textfields,labels,buttons etc..as per the size 800,1000 the
application looks good,suppose im maximizing the window of the Frame,
automatically the textfields,labels,buttons are kept in the static
way...
for AbsoluteLayout to have to place the JComponent by using the Insets that came from first container
Is there any possibilities to scale the contents of the J Frame
have to use ComponentListener (notice delayed by Swing Timer, because this Listener firing a new event for every pixels on all directions) for scalling JComponents together with container
this is job only for LayoutManager, don't to supply that by using AbsoluteLayout & Insets & ComponentListener, be sure this code could be longer an more complicated than by using GroupLayout

Applet Stand alone issue

I attempted to make an applet program I have Stand alone by adding in:
public static void main(String[] args) {
JFrame frame = new JFrame("StartingPoint");
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
StartingPoint sp = new StartingPoint();
frame.getContentPane().add(sp);
sp.init();
frame.pack();
frame.setVisible(true);
sp.start();
}
Right after my public class. When running as just the applet this does nothing, but when Running it as an application it runs as a very small, nearly flat box aside from the heading, and when manually resized, the screen is blank other then the backround color.
Any idea what may cause this?
I have also noticed, each time I resize the frame, what is on it freezes,as if a screen shot of what should happen, and when the screen is resized to nearly full screen I can see at the tip top of the screen a sliver of what should be moving.
I'd just like to say, that dropping an applet into a frame is a really bad idea. You are better off writing the application contents into a separate container (such as JPanel) and adding that to your applet or frame - IMHO.
From the Java Docs...
Window#pack
Causes this Window to be sized to fit the preferred size and layouts
of its subcomponents. The resulting width and height of the window are
automatically enlarged if either of dimensions is less than the
minimum size as specified by the previous call to the setMinimumSize
method.
If the window and/or its owner are not displayable yet, both of them
are made displayable before calculating the preferred size. The Window
is validated after its size is being calculated.
This would suggest that your applet needs to provide a preferredSize if you wish to use pack
You need to set the size of the JFrame:
frame.setSize(500, 400);
It sounds as if you are overriding the paint() method. If so, you will need to call
super.paint(g);
to repaint all child components of the applet container on resize.

Java Swing: component that resizes itself but doesn't influence the layout

I'll try to explain my problem as simply as possible but it's a tricky topic and people who haven't encountered the issue probably won't know what I'm talking about.
I want to use a BorderLayout using west, east, north, south, etc. components that are my "normal" components (JLabels, JButtons, etc.) then I want the center component to be an "image" (that is: pixels). To this end I'm using a BufferedImage and using setIcon on a JLabel that is inside a panel that is part of the "center".
However I want my image/pixels to be "fluid": whenever the user resizes the app, I want to compute the exact size of the JLabel (icon/text gap is set to 0) and then create a new image (pixels that I manipulate directly in a BufferedImage but whatever) that has exactly that size.
Now it does work fine. But only when I resize the main window ("window" as in "one of the window of the operating system) by making it bigger.
It doesn't work when I downsize my main window.
The reason, after a lot of testing, is obviously because the size of my JLabel (in which I did a setIcon( img ) is influencing the computation of the layout manager.
So here comes the billion dollar question: how should I use a BorderLayout (or any other layout) so that I can create a "fluid" rectangle of pixels in the center of my app?
Answering my own question with an answer that I will not accept even tough it does work...
The problem can be "worked around" by creating a picture a few pixels smaller than the getVisibleRect of the center area.
So in my case I create an ImageIcon from a BufferedImage that is 20 pixels smaller (both in width and height) than the area that will hold it.
What happens then is that because the picture is smaller it doesn't "block"/prevent the layout manager from putting everything at their correct place when downsizing the main window.
So by using such an hack I get the "fluid" behavior I want.
This is however an hack whose level of hackyness cannot be understated and I'm sure there's a very clean way to solve this.
The reason, after a lot of testing, is
obviously because the size of my
JLabel (in which I did a setIcon( img
) is influencing the computation of
the layout manager.
The preferred size of the JLabel is used in the preferred size of the panel, but this size is ignored when you resize the frame, since the CENTER only gets whatever space is left over after the preferred size of the other 4 components is considered.
To this end I'm using a BufferedImage
and using setIcon on a JLabel that is
inside a panel that is part of the
"center".
Sounds to me like it should work.
Create the panel with a BorderLayout. Add the JLabel to the Center of your main panel. Then add a ComponentListener to the panel. Now when the frame is resized the center panel size will be adjusted to take the space available to it. Now that you know the size of the center panel you can recreate the Icon and add it to your JLabel,
This is how you write a SSCCE:
import java.awt.*;
import javax.swing.*;
public class LabelTest2 extends JFrame
{
public LabelTest2()
{
JLabel picture = new JLabel(new ImageIcon("???.jpg"));
add(picture);
}
public static void main(String[] args)
{
LabelTest2 frame = new LabelTest2();
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation( EXIT_ON_CLOSE );
frame.pack();
frame.setLocationRelativeTo( null );
frame.setVisible(true);
}
}

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