Create a SWING GUI Frame and AWT Frame which is Closable

Create a SWING GUI Frame and AWT (Abstract Window Toolkit) Frame which is Closable

SWING GUI Frame Demo

Table of Contents

a) Introduction

b) Source Code

c) Description of Code

d) Output

Introduction

Working with SWING Frame means building the Desktop-Based GUI (Graphical User Interface) Applications. In this series I am going to tech you about the some basic about how to create a SWING Frame and also to make it closable. In this Frame I am not going to add any component but I will make you to be able to create the Frame using SWING.

[Note: Frame is the container in which different components are added.]

Now let’s have a look into the source code, and then decode it line by line;

Source code: 

/*

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* To change this template file, choose Tools | Templates

* and open the template in the editor.

*/

/**

*

* @author AnkitPC

*/

import javax.swing.*;

public class SwingFrameDemo {

    JFrame f;

    SwingFrameDemo(){ //constructor

     f=new JFrame("Swing Frame");

     f.setSize(400,300);

     f.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);

     f.setVisible(true);

  }

  //main method

    public static void main(String[] args) {

      //call constructor

     new SwingFrameDemo();

   }

}

The first line of this code is importing of package. It is necessary to import the package i.e javax.swing to use the components of that package. For a SWING GUI (Graphical User Interface) to make closable we does not need to handle the event. It is done just by using the method.

I have named the main class as SwingFrameDemo and declared a JFrame global variable. I have created a constructor but it is not compulsory to use the constructor. You can make a method also and it’s up to you.

[ Note: Making a constructor means you should not create an object to access the constructor. But if you use method instead of the constructor than you have to create the object and it is compulsory. ]

[ Note: You can use setTitle(String title) method to give the title to the frame. ]

setSize(int width,int height) method is used to provide the size of the frame. Without this method your frame may look like this.

I said already that you just need to call the method to make the SWING GUI closable rather than handling the event. The method is setDefaultCloseOperation(). In this method you can pass JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE or JFrame.DISPOSE_ON_CLOSE. These two works same for the single frame but not for multiple frame. We will learn it in further tutorials.

By default the frame visibility is none so you have to manually set its visibility. You can set is visibility by using the setVisible() method and inside it pass ‘true’ as it takes Boolean value.

Now at last we have the main method. Inside it I have called the constructor which will do the work. Let us see the output now:

Note: Components are not added in the frame so it is empty.

AWT (Abstract Window Toolkit) Frame

Table of Contents

a) Introduction

b) Source Code

c) Description of Source Code

d) Output

Introduction

To begin with java, We all know that java can build all types of the application whether it is Web Based, Android Based and Desktop Based Applications. It is the one of the oldest programming languages and also the high level language.

Java with AWT Frame needs to be handled with Event Delegation Model commonly known as event handling. Here, I use WindowAdapter to do so.

Let's see the source code and decode it line by line;

Source Code:

/*

* To change this license header, choose License Headers in Project Properties.

* To change this template file, choose Tools | Templates

* and open the template in the editor.

*/

/**

*

* @author AnkitPC

*/

import java.awt.*;

import java.awt.event.*;

public class AWTFrameDemo extends WindowAdapter {

   

    Frame f;

    AWTFrameDemo(){

       

        f=new Frame();

        f.setTitle("Welcome");

        f.setSize(400,300);

       

        f.addWindowListener(this);

       

        f.setVisible(true);

    }

     

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        new AWTFrameDemo();

    }

   

    public void windowClosing(WindoIvent e){

       

        f.dispose();

    }

   

}

Starting from the top:

We should import the required packages to run the program. This is the inbuilt packages in java. And importing a package is always must be the first statement of the program in java.

import java.awt.*;

import java.awt.event.*;

We have to import these two packages because in-order to use AWT components (i.e Frame , Button etc) I need to import java.awt package. And as I have said already that I need to handle the event to create its frame so I import the java.awt.event package.

[Note: These to packages look same because of java.awt but these packages are different and should be imported.]

Now I have the main class called AWTFrameDemo which extends the WindowsAdapter. As I all know that I can implement WindowListener also in this program but there is always a advantage of using Adapter class over Listener interface. It is because that I only need to override the method that is needed.

Inside the main class, I have declared a variable Frame f1. After that a constructor is created. It is not compulsory to make the constructor as you can make the method also. So it is all up to you to create a constructor or to create the method. The object of Frame is created, and title is provided with the method called setTitle(String title). Until and Unless you provide the size of the frame  you will not see it. So set a size of frame using setSize(int width,int height) method. And you must add the windowListener to the frame in-order to make it closeable. At last don’t forget to set the frame to visible which is done using the setVisible() method. By default the value in the setVisible() method will be ‘false’ so make it ‘true’. This method takes Boolean as value.

Now comes the main method. Inside it we just have to call the constructor and it will do the rest of the work. But till now you will se the error in the program because we have not handled the event.

Therefore windowClosing(WindowEvent e) is the method inside the WindowListener/WindowAdapter that is overrided and dispose() method is called to close the frame.

See the Output;

And that’s how we can make the AWT frame closable.