Swing Hacks

208

|

Chapter 5, Windows, Dialogs, and Frames

#40 Minimize to a Mini-Frame

HACK

I Shall Call Him...Mini-Me

Switching a frame between two sizes is quite easy: just call setSize( ) and

you’re done. Doing it well is a bit more difficult, however. When you mini-

mize the window, you also need to remove the window decorations, hide

the menu bar, and remove the components that shouldn’t be visible in the

mini-view. This is a bit trickier, not the least of which because you can’t turn

off the window decorations of a frame once it has been created. But I’m get-

ting ahead of myself. First, you need a sample application.

Let’s take a simple clock program. The normal window looks like

Figure 5-11. The goal is to provide a mini version that looks like Figure 5-12.

This program has a clock, a panel with more configuration options (repre-

sented here with just the label More configuration), a menu bar, and a pop-

up menu for later use. Example 5-9 creates the interface and puts the com-

ponents in the right places, but it doesn’t do anything with them yet.

Figure 5-11. A normal application window

Figure 5-12. A mini application window

Example 5-9. The beginning of a clock with a mini version

public class MiniMizeHack implements MouseListener, ActionListener {

public JFrame frame;

public JPanel panel;

public JPopupMenu popup;

Minimize to a Mini-Frame #40

Chapter 5, Windows, Dialogs, and Frames

|

209

HACK

public JMenuBar ...