Swing Hacks

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Chapter 1, Basic JComponents

#4 Display Dates in a Custom Calendar

HACK

Create the Images

I created three images in Photoshop: one for the background, one for each day,

and one for the current day. These are shown in Figures 1-16, 1-17, and 1-18.

I could have separated the day names and the title, but since

they don’t change, it was simpler to make them part of the

image.

A Component to Paint

The easiest way to create a custom component with fancy drawing is to start

off with a

JPanel and override the paintComponent( ) method, as shown in

Example 1-9.

Figure 1-16. calendar.png for the general background

Figure 1-17. day.png for the day backgrounds

Figure 1-18. highlight.png for the current day

Example 1-9. A Calendar base component

public class CalendarHack extends JPanel {

protected Image background, highlight, day_img;

protected SimpleDateFormat month = new SimpleDateFormat("MMMM");