Question

Background information:

I am implementing a visual diagram editor, which consists of

• different complex elements (re-sizable, with title bar, sub-elements) and
• different simple elements (not re-sizable, no title bar, no sub-elements).

All elements are draggable.

I am using JInternalFrame (for complex elements) along with JPanel
(for simple elements) to represent elements of a schematic diagram. There is a container (either a JDesktopPane or a JLayeredPane), which contain
all these elements.

I have several problems with this concept:

Case 1 – The container is a JDesktopPane:

• JInternalFrames are always above other elements.
• Clicking other elements don’t “deactivate” previously active JInternalFrame

Case 2 – The container is a JLayeredPane:

• After clicking some elements inside a JInternalFrame, it stays
  “activated” forever.

Case 3 – JInternalFrame used for everything, but without decoration for simple elements:

• My custom border (which is needed when I manually remove
  JInternalFrame’s title bar) is every time replaced by current LAF border, after
  activating/deactivating the JInternalFrame.

I don’t get the whole concepts behind activating JInternalFrames anyway.
If I could make a JInternalFrame not activable at all, I could
choose Case 2 any would be happy.

Please advice me, what would be an simple and straightforward solution to given problems.

NOTE: Selection of components and activation of JInternalFrame
seem to be different things.

Answer 1

I might misunderstand your problem. Have you tried to look at the setSelected() method of JIF? It seems there are support for method override and vetoable activation events.

Edit: Maybe we have some terminological misunderstanding as the javadoc states:

/**
 * Selects or deselects the internal frame
 * if it's showing.
 * A <code>JInternalFrame</code> normally draws its title bar
 * differently if it is
 * the selected frame, which indicates to the user that this
 * internal frame has the focus.
 * When this method changes the state of the internal frame
 * from deselected to selected, it fires an
 * <code>InternalFrameEvent.INTERNAL_FRAME_ACTIVATED</code> event.
 * If the change is from selected to deselected,
 * an <code>InternalFrameEvent.INTERNAL_FRAME_DEACTIVATED</code> event
 * is fired.
 *
 * @param selected  a boolean, where <code>true</code> means this internal frame
 *                  should become selected (currently active)
 *                  and <code>false</code> means it should become deselected
 * @exception PropertyVetoException when the attempt to set the
 *            property is vetoed by the <code>JInternalFrame</code>
 *
 * @see #isShowing
 * @see InternalFrameEvent#INTERNAL_FRAME_ACTIVATED
 * @see InternalFrameEvent#INTERNAL_FRAME_DEACTIVATED
 *
 * @beaninfo
 *     constrained: true
 *           bound: true
 *     description: Indicates whether this internal frame is currently
 *                  the active frame.
 */

Edit 2: Now I re-read your 2nd case. I would say each JIF has its own separated focus/selection environment. You could create a method which traverses all your JIFs and deselects anything in it unless its the component you wanted to be selected.