Question

I need to resize the font of multiple JLabel based on the scaling factor used to resize the container. To do this, I am setting the font of each JLabel to null so that they take the font of the container. It works, but it also produces strange results.

To be specific, the text seems to “lag” behind the container and sometimes it gets even truncated. I would like to avoid this behavior. Any idea how?

Example code simulating the behavior:

import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.Container;
import java.awt.Dimension;
import java.awt.Font;
import java.awt.GridBagConstraints;
import java.awt.GridBagLayout;
import java.awt.Insets;
import java.awt.geom.AffineTransform;

import javax.swing.BorderFactory;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.JSlider;
import javax.swing.SwingUtilities;
import javax.swing.WindowConstants;
import javax.swing.event.ChangeEvent;
import javax.swing.event.ChangeListener;

public class TextResize implements Runnable {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        TextResize example = new TextResize();
        SwingUtilities.invokeLater(example);
    }

    public void run() {
        JFrame frame = new JFrame("JLabel Text Resize");
        frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(WindowConstants.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        frame.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(800, 400));

        Container container = frame.getContentPane();
        container.setLayout(new BorderLayout());

        final JPanel labelContainer = new JPanel(new GridBagLayout());
        labelContainer.setBorder(BorderFactory.createLineBorder(Color.black));

        //initial font
        final Font textFont = new Font("Lucida Console", Font.PLAIN, 10).deriveFont(AffineTransform.getScaleInstance(1, 1));
        labelContainer.setFont(textFont);

        GridBagConstraints c = new GridBagConstraints();
        c.fill = GridBagConstraints.BOTH;
        c.insets = new Insets(0, 10, 0, 10);
        c.weightx = 1;
        for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
            JLabel f = new JLabel("Text here with possibly looooooooong words");
            f.setBorder(BorderFactory.createLineBorder(Color.green));
            f.setFont(null);//take the font from parent
            c.gridy = i;
            labelContainer.add(f, c);
        }

        JSlider slider = new JSlider(0,50000,10000);
        slider.addChangeListener(new ChangeListener() {     
            double containerWidth = labelContainer.getPreferredSize().getWidth();
            double containerHeight = labelContainer.getPreferredSize().getHeight();

            @Override
            public void stateChanged(ChangeEvent ev) {
                JSlider source = (JSlider) ev.getSource();
                double scale = (double) (source.getValue() / 10000d);

                //scaling the container
                labelContainer.setSize((int) (containerWidth * scale), (int) (containerHeight * scale));

                //adjusting the font: why does it 'lag' ? why the truncation at times?
                Font newFont = textFont.deriveFont(AffineTransform.getScaleInstance(scale, scale));
                labelContainer.setFont(newFont);

                //print (font.getSize() does not change?)
                System.out.println(scale + " " + newFont.getTransform() + newFont.getSize2D());
            }
        });

        container.add(slider, BorderLayout.NORTH);
        JPanel test = new JPanel();
        test.setLayout(null);
        labelContainer.setBounds(5, 5, labelContainer.getPreferredSize().width, labelContainer.getPreferredSize().height);
        test.add(labelContainer);
        container.add(test, BorderLayout.CENTER);

        frame.pack();
        frame.setVisible(true);
    }

}

Picture:
https://i.stack.imgur.com/tZLOO.png

Thanks,

-s

Answer 1

I sort of solved the problem adding:

@Override
protected void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
    final Graphics2D g2d = (Graphics2D) g;
    g2d.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_FRACTIONALMETRICS, RenderingHints.VALUE_FRACTIONALMETRICS_ON);
    g2d.setRenderingHint(java.awt.RenderingHints.KEY_TEXT_ANTIALIASING, java.awt.RenderingHints.VALUE_TEXT_ANTIALIAS_ON);
    super.paintComponent(g2d);
}

Thanks anyway.