Help with a layout/gui issue

[blazedaces]

Hey, so here's an example of what I want to do:

This "window" if you will, or simple gui, will accept an ArrayList<String> and in turn spit out for every one of them a checkbox and a text field where you can rename it to whatever name you chose (later I'll add something to check and make sure none of the names are the same... but for now it doesn't matter).

I'm not very familiar with GUI in java so I don't know the best way of doing this. I'm not asking for code, but simply some help in the right direction. I've downloading all of java swing's tutorial demos and examples and have looked at just about every component and layout example in there. Still I don't feel like I know what I'm doing and you'll see in my code soon what I mean.

Before I do I want to show you guys what I want the gui to look like in a sense:

ArrayList<String> temp = new ArrayList<String>(2);
                temp.add("First Tag\\");
                temp.add("Second Tag\\");
 
If above is the arraylist I would want the gui to look something like this:
 
Note: ---- represents the border of the window, [] represents a checkbox, text represents non-editable text and "text" represents editable text
 
Well I didn't mention this earlier but the point of the checkboxes is to not include those strings, when I return an arraylist later, but that's not important now.  The gui showing up is coming first...
----------------------------------------------
-  []First Tag: "First Tag"                  -
-  []Second Tag: "Second Tag"                -
----------------------------------------------
 
Of course with a title and minimize/maximize/close buttons there too, but they come automatically...
 

Here's what I've got so far with the code, I tried to put stuff into JPanels and then add them to the gui later:

import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import javax.swing.*;
import java.util.*;
 
public class TagChoosingWindow implements ItemListener {
    JTextField[] textFields;
       JCheckBox[] checkBoxes;
       JPanel[] panels;
 
       short[] included;
 
       ArrayList<String> tags;
 
    public TagChoosingWindow(ArrayList<String> al) {
        tags = al;
        int size = tags.size();
 
        included = new short[size];
 
        textFields = new JTextField[size];
           checkBoxes = new JCheckBox[size];
           panels = new JPanel[size];
 
        for (int i = 0; i < size; i++) {
            checkBoxes[i] = new JCheckBox(tags.get(i) + " : ");
            checkBoxes[i].setSelected(true);
            checkBoxes[i].addItemListener(this);
 
            textFields[i] = new JTextField(tags.get(i));
 
            included[i] = 1;
 
            panels[i] = new JPanel(new BoxLayout(panels[i], BoxLayout.LINE_AXIS));
            panels[i].add(checkBoxes[i]);
            panels[i].add(textFields[i]);
        }
 
 
    }
 
    private void buildUI(Container container) {
        container.setLayout(new BoxLayout(container, BoxLayout.PAGE_AXIS));
 
        for (int i = 0; i < panels.length; i++) {
            container.add(panels[i]);
        }
    }
 
    public void itemStateChanged(ItemEvent e) {
        Object source = e.getItemSelectable();
        int index = -1;
        for (int i = 0; i < checkBoxes.length; i++) {
            if (source == checkBoxes[i]) {
                index = i;
                break;
            }
        }
 
        if (e.getStateChange() == ItemEvent.SELECTED) {
            textFields[index].setEnabled(true);
            included[index] = 1;
        } else {
            textFields[index].setEnabled(false);
            included[index] = 0;
        }
    }
 
    private void createAndShowGUI() {
        //Create and set up the window.
        JFrame frame = new JFrame("Choose What Data Tags You Want and Name Them");
        frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
 
        //Set up the content pane.
        TagChoosingWindow tagchoosingwindow = new TagChoosingWindow(tags);
        tagchoosingwindow.buildUI(frame.getContentPane());
 
        //Display the window.
        frame.pack();
        frame.setVisible(true);
    }
 
    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() {
                ArrayList<String> temp = new ArrayList<String>(2);
                temp.add("First Tag\\");
                temp.add("Second Tag\\");
                TagChoosingWindow tagchoosingwindow = new TagChoosingWindow(temp);
                tagchoosingwindow.createAndShowGUI(); 
            }
        });
    }
}
 

Oh and thank you for all help, it's much appreciated,

-blazed

[JosAH]

Have a look at the JTable component with its TableModel compadre. The first
column could consists of JCheckBoxes and the second column can be a
JTextField. The TableModel receives the List at construction time so it is able
to set up the row dimension of the JTable (there are just two columns).

Of course you have to build your own TableModel for this (check the API docs).
You can build a 'collect' method in your model that collects all the selected
Strings from the JTable.

kind regards,

Jos

[blazedaces]

Have a look at the JTable component with its TableModel compadre. The first
column could consists of JCheckBoxes and the second column can be a
JTextField. The TableModel receives the List at construction time so it is able
to set up the row dimension of the JTable (there are just two columns).

Of course you have to build your own TableModel for this (check the API docs).
You can build a 'collect' method in your model that collects all the selected
Strings from the JTable.

kind regards,

Jos

A good idea. I was considering a JTable at first, but didn't like the look it gave. What you suggested I think might solve all my problems though because if I had my own built TableModel I'm guessing I could manipulate those lines in between the cells to not appear along with other look-and-feel parts of the table.

Thanks,

-blazed

Well, I took a look at it, that's not exactly what I thought TableModel was... but alright. Maybe there's another way to avoid that ... if not, it doesn't matter I guess...

[JosAH]

A good idea. I was considering a JTable at first, but didn't like the look it gave. What you suggested I think might solve all my problems though because if I had my own built TableModel I'm guessing I could manipulate those lines in between the cells to not appear along with other look-and-feel parts of the table.

Thanks,

-blazed

Well, I took a look at it, that's not exactly what I thought TableModel was... but alright. Maybe there's another way to avoid that ... if not, it doesn't matter I guess...

You have to read a bit further: there's an AbstractTableModel class that does
the bulk of the work for you; you only have to implement three or four methods:
row and column sizes, get a value and set a value. That's all there is to it. The
AbstractModel class does the rest for you. For most of the 'complicated'
interfaces there's an Abstract class implementation for you (e.g. AbstractList,
AbstractTableModel etc.) so you don't have to (re)implement all the boring
bookkeeping stuff yourself.

kind regards,

Jos

[blazedaces]

You have to read a bit further: there's an AbstractTable model that does the bulk
of the work for you; you only have to implement three or four methods: row and
column sizes, get a value and set a value. That's all there is to it. The Abstract
thing does the rest for you. For most of the 'complicated' interfaces there's an
Abstract implementation for you (e.g. AbstractList, AbstractTableModel etc.)
so you don't have to (re)implement all the boring bookkeeping stuff yourself.

kind regards,

Jos

Well, I did take a look at that, but it doesn't seem to be able to do what I want:

mainpulate the table so there are no borders between the individual cells or specific cells (like a border between the columns, but not the rows or vice versa)

I may be wrong. I will have to investigate further... I do notice in the "How to use tables" tutorial you can change the background, which is sweet. I never like looking into a lightbulb ;)

-blazed

[JosAH]

Well, I did take a look at that, but it doesn't seem to be able to do what I want:

mainpulate the table so there are no borders between the individual cells or specific cells (like a border between the columns, but not the rows or vice versa)

I may be wrong. I will have to investigate further... I do notice in the "How to use tables" tutorial you can change the background, which is sweet. I never like looking into a lightbulb ;)

-blazed

Swing components don't work that way: the Model takes care of the data.
the visual component (the JTable) takes care of the rendering; Hava a look at the
setInterCellSpacing() method for example.

kind regards,

Jos

[blazedaces]

Swing components don't work that way: the Model takes care of the data.
the visual component (the JTable) takes care of the rendering; Hava a look at the
setInterCellSpacing() method for example.

kind regards,

Jos

I think I found a solution to my problem. You can use the setBackground with setGridColor to set them as the same color and poof... no more grid! hehe!

-blazed