Question

I am trying to have my interface dynamically generate a customized button when I click a button. I searched several answers like this, but somehow it does not work. Is there any mistake with my current code below?

  public class MainWindow {

private JFrame frame;
private JPanel panel;
private JPanel panel_1;
private JPanel panel_2;
private JSplitPane splitPane;
private JButton btnSearch;

/**
 * Launch the application.
 */
public static void main(String[] args) {
    EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
        public void run() {
            try {
                MainWindow window = new MainWindow();
                window.frame.setVisible(true);
            } catch (Exception e) {
                e.printStackTrace();
            }
        }
    });
}

/**
 * Create the application.
 */
public MainWindow() {
    initialize();
}

/**
 * Initialize the contents of the frame.
 */
private void initialize() {
    frame = new JFrame();
    frame.setBounds(100, 100, 645, 438);
    frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);

    panel = new JPanel();
    frame.getContentPane().add(panel, BorderLayout.CENTER);
    panel.setLayout(new BoxLayout(panel, BoxLayout.X_AXIS));

    splitPane = new JSplitPane();
    panel.add(splitPane);

    panel_1 = new JPanel();
    splitPane.setLeftComponent(panel_1);

    btnSearch = new JButton("Search");

    GridBagConstraints gbc_btnSearch = new GridBagConstraints();
    gbc_btnSearch.gridx = 0;
    gbc_btnSearch.gridy = 10;
    panel_1.add(btnSearch, gbc_btnSearch);

    panel_2 = new JPanel();
    splitPane.setRightComponent(panel_2);

    btnSearch.addMouseListener(new MouseAdapter() {
        @Override
        public void mouseClicked(MouseEvent e) {
            addButton();
        }
    });
}
protected void addButton() {
    MyButton hahaButton = new MyButton("haha");
    panel_2.add(hahaButton);
    panel_2.add(new JButton());
    panel_2.revalidate();
    panel_2.repaint();
}

And this is the definition of the MyButton:

    public class MyButton extends JButton {

private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

private Color circleColor = Color.BLACK;

public MyButton(String label) {
    super(label);
}

@Override
protected void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
    super.paintComponent(g);

    Dimension originalSize = super.getPreferredSize();
    int gap = (int) (originalSize.height * 0.2);
    int x = originalSize.width + gap;
    int y = gap;
    int diameter = originalSize.height - (gap * 2);

    g.setColor(circleColor);
    g.fillOval(x, y, diameter, diameter);
}

@Override
public Dimension getPreferredSize() {
    Dimension size = super.getPreferredSize();
    size.width += size.height;
    return size;
}

}

Answer 1

I just tried your sourcecode and it works as expected: everytime I klick the search button on the left side of the split-pane, 2 buttons are added to the panel on the right side of the panel (one with the black filled circle and a button without a label).

What doesn’t work for you? I’m using java 1.6 on Mac OSX, but this should work with earlier versions on other platforms as well……