Question

I know I am being an idiot and that’s why I can’t figure it out but I am trying to paint a bunch of rectangles with randoms size and position using paintComponent. I am trying to make sure that all of them are painted within the frame. I am able to do it with the following code (snippet) but I am wondering if there is a better way to do it than me hardcoding numbers into the program. Is there a method that I should take a look at that might be what I’m looking for?

Here’s the inner class that overrides the paintComponent() method:

class DrawPanel extends JPanel {
    public void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
        int red = (int)(Math.random()*256);
        int blue = (int)(Math.random()*256);
        int green = (int)(Math.random()*256);

        g.setColor(new Color(red, blue, green));
        //The following 4 lines keep the rects within the frame
        //The frame is 500,500
        int ht = (int)(Math.random()*400);
        int wd = (int)(Math.random()*400);

        int x = (int)(Math.random()*100);
        int y = (int)(Math.random()*100);

        g.fillRect(x,y,ht,wd);
    }
}

Answer 1

You should base your co-ordinates & sizes on the DrawPanel component size. Also using Random.nextInt instead of Math.random() will make it easier to keep within range based on the current size of the panel:

Random random = new Random();
int ht = random.nextInt(getHeight());
int wd = random.nextInt(getWidth());

int x = random.nextInt(getWidth() - wd);
int y = random.nextInt(getHeight() - ht);