Question

How can I tell the paint method to draw background on JPanel only and not on the entire JFrame.
My JFrame size is bigger than the JPanel. When I try to paint a grid background for the JPanel, the grid seems to be painted all over the JFrame instead of just the JPanel.

Here parts of the code:

public class Drawing extends JFrame {
  JPanel drawingPanel;
  ...........
  public Drawing (){
    drawingPanel = new JPanel();
    drawingPanel.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(600,600));
  }


public void paint(Graphics g) 
{
  super.paintComponents(g);
  Graphics2D g2 = (Graphics2D) g;
  g2.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_ANTIALIASING, RenderingHints.VALUE_ANTIALIAS_ON);

  paintBackground(g2); //call a METHOD to paint the for JPANEL
}


private void paintBackground(Graphics2D g2)
{
  g2.setPaint(Color.GRAY);
  for (int i = 0; i < drawingPanel.getSize().width; i += 300) 
  {
     Shape line = new Line2D.Float(i, 0, i, drawingPanel.getSize().height);
     g2.draw(line);
  }

  for (int i = 0; i < drawingPanel.getSize().height; i += 300) 
  {
    Shape line = new Line2D.Float(0, i, drawingPanel.getSize().width, i);
    g2.draw(line);
  }      
} //END private void paintBackground(Graphics2D g2)

}

Answer 1

camickr is correct. So:

public class Drawing extends JFrame {
  JPanel drawingPanel;
  ...........
  public Drawing (){
    drawingPanel = new MyPanel();
    drawingPanel.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(600,600));
    add(drawingPanel);
  }
}

public class MyPanel extends JPanel {
  public void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
    super.paintComponent(g);
    Graphics2D g2 = (Graphics2D) g;
    g2.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_ANTIALIASING, RenderingHints.VALUE_ANTIALIAS_ON);

    myBackgroundRoutine(g2);
  }
}

You need to strictly separate your drawing from different components. Swing is already
managing subcomponents, so there is absolutely no need to implement drawings in your
Panel in the Frame (calling paintComponents() is a severe error).
And you should never override paint(), because only paintComponent()
is used in Swing. Don’t mix both until you absolutely know what you are doing.