JDialog too small for title

[Paula Davis]

I want to create and display a JDialog whose contents and title are specified at runtime. I can't rely on hard-coding the size through

setPreferredSize(Dimension)

, because the contents and title are determined at runtime. The dialog is smart enough to size itself for the component being placed on it, but the title gets truncated. How to force it to accommodate the title?

Here is a simplified version, which demonstrates the problem I'm having while shortening the code sample to a few lines:

 
JDialog d = new JDialog();
d.getContentPane().setLayout(new BorderLayout());
d.getContentPane().add(new JLabel("hi!"), BorderLayout.CENTER);
d.setTitle("This is an example of a somewhat longish title");
d.pack();
d.setVisible(true);

Thanks.

[Ulf Dittmer]

You could set a preferred/minimum size that reflects the length of the title. The FontMetrics class can tell you how many pixels a given string will take up in a given font.

[Paula Davis]

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction, Ulf.

This works:

JDialog d = new JDialog();
d.getContentPane().setLayout(new BorderLayout());
d.getContentPane().add(new JLabel("hi!"), BorderLayout.CENTER);
d.setTitle("This is an example of a somewhat longish title");
d.pack();
if(d.getTitle() != null) // moot in this example but needed in real life
{
FontMetrics fm = d.getFontMetrics(d.getFont());
// +75 to allow for icon and "x-out" button
int width = fm.stringWidth(d.getTitle()) + 75;
width = Math.max(width, d.getPreferredSize().width);
d.setSize(new Dimension(width, d.getPreferredSize().height));
}
d.setVisible(true)

For some reason, setPreferredSize(Dimension) and setMinimumSize(Dimension) did not render the JDialog with the desired size... I don't know why... but since setSize(Dimension) worked, I'm good to go.

Thanks again.