Perhaps this time the fleet needs to sail

[Chris Crawford]

Last night I solved my problem with a JLayeredPane merely by preparing the SSCCE (or whatever the acronym is). But this time I seem to be well and truly stuck. Here's the basic code, which does in fact compile and produce results that are not what I think they should be:

		mainFrame=new JFrame();
		mainFrame.setSize(frameWidth, frameHeight);
		mainFrame.setVisible(true);
		mainFrame.setTitle("Test Title");
		JLayeredPane layeredPane=mainFrame.getLayeredPane();
		JLabel homeImage=new JLabel();
		homeImage.setIcon(new ImageIcon(directoryName+"homeImage.jpg"));
		homeImage.setSize(homeImage.getPreferredSize());
		layeredPane.add(homeImage, new Integer(0));
		JPanel rightLowerPanel=new JPanel();
		rightLowerPanel.setBackground(Color.pink);
	    JRadioButton godButton=new JRadioButton("I Am God");
		rightLowerPanel.add(godButton);
		layeredPane.add(rightLowerPanel,new Integer(1));
		mainFrame.repaint();

I have stripped out a bunch of radio buttons that accompanied godButton. I made the background of rightLowerPanel pink so that it would stand out against homeImage.

Some background information: homeImage.jpg fills mainFrame; rightLowerPanel contains JRadioButtons, but only one in this example. I tried three different variations of the layer depths of the two JComponents: (0,0); (0,1); and (1,0), just to make sure that I didn't have the layer depth interpretations backwards (The documentation describes two interpretations that are opposed to each other -- I'd love to hear how the Java designers got themselves into that mess!)

The results: homeImage shows up in all three combinations of depth settings; rightLowerPanel never shows up in any of the depth settings. My expectation is that rightLowerPanel should show up on top of homeImage.

My guess is that I am leaving out one of the myriad enabling settings. If this be so, then one of you folks will ask "Did you remember to use setFlopDoodle(true)?" and I'll answer "Oops! Sorry, I shoulda thought of that."

As always, thanks in advance for your help.

[Rob Camick]

It doesn't compile when I try to copy/paste/compile the code.

[Chris Crawford]

Oops -- sorry, I forgot that you need all the core definitions. Here we go:

import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.Component;
import java.awt.Dimension;
import java.awt.Font;
import java.awt.Insets;
import java.awt.image.BufferedImage;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
 import java.text.NumberFormat;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Collections;
import java.util.HashMap;

import javax.swing.Box;
import javax.swing.BoxLayout;
import javax.swing.ImageIcon;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JLayeredPane;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.JRadioButton;
import javax.swing.UIManager;

public class CoreStuff extends JPanel {
	private static final long serialVersionUID=1L;
	static final int frameWidth=1024;
	static final int frameHeight=768;
	JFrame mainFrame;
	JRadioButton godButton=new JRadioButton("I Am God");

	public CoreStuff() {
		mainFrame=new JFrame();
		mainFrame.setSize(frameWidth, frameHeight);
		mainFrame.setVisible(true);
		mainFrame.setTitle("Test Title");
		JLayeredPane layeredPane=mainFrame.getLayeredPane();
		JLabel homeImage=new JLabel();
		homeImage.setIcon(new ImageIcon(directoryName+"GameImages/SplashScreen.jpg"));
		homeImage.setSize(homeImage.getPreferredSize());
		layeredPane.add(homeImage, new Integer(0));
		JPanel rightLowerPanel=new JPanel();
		rightLowerPanel.setBackground(Color.pink);
		rightLowerPanel.add(godButton);
		layeredPane.add(rightLowerPanel,new Integer(1));
		mainFrame.repaint();
   }

	public static void main(String args[]) {
		try {
			UIManager.setLookAndFeel(UIManager.getCrossPlatformLookAndFeelClassName());
		}
		catch(Exception evt) {}
		new CoreStuff();
	}

I hope this covers it for you. Thanks again.

[Rob Camick]

A layered pane doesn't use a layout manager so you need to set the size/location of all components you add to the layered pane:

rightLowerPanel.setSize(rightLowerPanel.getPreferredSize());

I included my version which helps with other little coding problems as well:

import java.awt.*;
import java.io.*;
import javax.swing.*;

//public class CoreStuff extends JPanel {
public class CoreStuff {
    private static final long serialVersionUID=1L;
//    static final int frameWidth=1024;
//    static final int frameHeight=768;
    JFrame mainFrame;
    JRadioButton godButton=new JRadioButton("I Am God");

    public CoreStuff() {
        mainFrame=new JFrame();
//        mainFrame.setSize(frameWidth, frameHeight);
		mainFrame.setExtendedState(JFrame.MAXIMIZED_BOTH);
//        mainFrame.setVisible(true);
        mainFrame.setTitle("Test Title");
//        JLayeredPane layeredPane=mainFrame.getLayeredPane();
        JLayeredPane layeredPane= new JLayeredPane();
        mainFrame.add(layeredPane);
        JLabel homeImage=new JLabel();
//        homeImage.setIcon(new ImageIcon(directoryName+"GameImages/SplashScreen.jpg"));
        homeImage.setIcon(new ImageIcon("mong.jpg"));
        homeImage.setSize(homeImage.getPreferredSize());
        layeredPane.add(homeImage, new Integer(0));
        JPanel rightLowerPanel=new JPanel();
        rightLowerPanel.setBackground(Color.pink);
        rightLowerPanel.add(godButton);
        rightLowerPanel.setSize( rightLowerPanel.getPreferredSize());
        layeredPane.add(rightLowerPanel,new Integer(1));
//        mainFrame.repaint();
        mainFrame.setVisible(true);
   }

    public static void main(String args[]) {
        try {
            UIManager.setLookAndFeel(UIManager.getCrossPlatformLookAndFeelClassName());
        }
        catch(Exception evt) {}
        new CoreStuff();
    }
}

[Chris Crawford]

Thank you, thank you, thank you! Your solution worked perfectly! I had been confused about whether to use a new JLayeredPane instead of the one belonging to mainFrame, but one of the topics I found here on a search for JLayeredPane used the latter approach, so I decided to go with that. And I've always been confused about the best time to include the mainFrame.setVisible(true) call; henceforth I'll always put it at the END of all the other setup code.

I must confess, I've never really "gotten the feel of" Swing. I've been using it in a putzy way for some years now, and most of the time my stuff works, but I seldom can figure out why when it doesn't work. I've read about its internal processes, but they're a bit too complicated for me to truly grasp.

Thanks again.