Swing Hacks

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Chapter 5, Windows, Dialogs, and Frames

#36 Add Status Bars to Windows

HACK

adding the status bar to your frame with a BorderLayout or similar layout

that will stretch this component to the width of the window:

public JStatusBar( ){

setPreferredSize(new Dimension(getWidth( ), 23));

}

Painting Panel Details

Figure 5-7 shows the Windows Explorer status bar zoomed in around the

42.3 MB label. There are a couple of gray lines at the top and bottom, as

well as a blue line at the bottom, used to achieve a subtle gradation effect.

You can achieve this effect easily by overriding

paintComponent( ) and draw-

ing the lines yourself. Here is the overridden

paintComponent( ) code:

public void paintComponent(Graphics g) {

super.paintComponent(g);

int y = 0;

g.setColor(new Color(156, 154, 140));

g.drawLine(0, y, getWidth( ), y);

y++;

g.setColor(new Color(196, 194, 183));

g.drawLine(0, y, getWidth( ), y);

y++;

g.setColor(new Color(218, 215, 201));

g.drawLine(0, y, getWidth( ), y);

y++;

g.setColor(new Color(233, 231, 217));

g.drawLine(0, y, getWidth( ), y);

y = getHeight( ) - 3;

g.setColor(new Color(233, 232, 218));

g.drawLine(0, y, getWidth( ), y);

y++;

g.setColor(new Color(233, 231, 216));

g.drawLine(0, y, getWidth( ), y);

y = getHeight( ) - 1;

g.setColor(new Color(221, 221, 220));

g.drawLine(0, y, getWidth( ), y);

}

Figure 5-7. Explorer’s status bar zoomed in