Question

I have a poker game where I designed a nice pretty GUI that displays the cards and players. I did it all extending JPanel inside paint() with a lot of g2d.drawImage’s and g2d.drawString()’s, with definite x and y locations.

My problem now is that I need to have a couple interactive buttons underneath it.. but whenever I try to add a JButton, it appears top and center. I’ve used setLocation(x, y) and setLayout(null) and everything I’ve seen in other replies, but none of them seem to match my need (Or at least I don’t have a very well understanding of where to put it)

This is how my code is set up:
pokerserver.java

public class pokerserver extends JFrame {

    public pokerserver() {
        add(new drawing());    
        setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        setSize(720, 640);
        setLocationRelativeTo(null);
        setTitle("Poker HANGOUTS");
        setResizable(false);
        setVisible(true);            
    }

    public static void main(String args[]) {
        new pokerserver();    
    }

And then in drawing.class

public drawing() {      
    setFocusable(true);
    setBackground(new Color(39,91,46));
    setDoubleBuffered(true);        
    gameCards = new cards();
    gameCards.shuffle();

    for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++)
        seats[i] = -1;

    HQ = new HeadQuarters(this);
    HQ.start();

}

public void paint(Graphics g) {
    super.paint(g);       

    Graphics2D g2d = (Graphics2D)g;

    //All my UI code
    }

My last attempt was trying to add

   JButton button = new JButton("TEST");
    add(button);
   button.setLocation(10, 500);

at the end of public drawing(). I Keep seeing things on layout management, but it’s not helping me — mainly because I’m not sure how to implement it

Here’s a screenshot to help visualize what I’m talking about->

https://i.stack.imgur.com/O11C0.png

Trying to get the button underneath. Unless there’s a way to add an ActionListener to a drawImage()?

Answer 1

For your main panel use a BorderLayout.

Then to the “CENTER” you can add your game panel with all your custom painting.

Then create a panel and add the buttons to it. Now you can add this panel to the NORTH of the main panel.

In other words you are not restricted to using a single panel.

Also, custom painting should be done in the paintComponent() method of your panel, NOT the paint() method.