Java Swing, 2nd Edition

The JSlider Class

The JSlider class represents a graphical slider. Like scrollbars, sliders can have either a horizontal or vertical orientation. With sliders, however, you can enhance their appearance with tick marks and labels. The class hierarchy is illustrated in Figure 6-8. In most instances, a slider is preferable to a standalone scrollbar. Sliders represent a selection of one value from a bounded range. Scrollbars represent a range of values within a bounded range and are best used in things like the JScrollPane.

Figure 6-8. JSlider class diagram

The JSlider class allows you to set the spacing of two types of tick marks: major and minor. Major tick marks are longer than minor tick marks and are generally used at wider intervals. Figure 6-9 shows various sliders that can be composed in Swing.

Figure 6-9. Various sliders in Swing

The setPaintTicks( ) method sets a boolean, which is used to activate or deactivate the slider’s tick marks. In some L&Fs, the slider changes from a rectangular shape to a pointer when tick marks are activated. This is often done to give the user a more accurate representation of where the slider falls.

You can create a Dictionary of Component objects to annotate the slider. Each entry in the Dictionary consists of two fields: an Integer key, which supplies ...