Want a JDialog to be "modal" but not block other windows

Question

I'm working on a program that traverses a list of objects every pass through. When an object's "time" (i.e. number of passes) is up, it brings up a JDialog to request its next task. The problem is how to deal with multiple objects making this request on a single pass.

If I make the JDialog modal, each object makes its request in turn, which is what I want; but the main program window is unavailable, which I do not want.

If the JDialog is not modal, multiple instances appear, one for each pass, which I do not want; or, if I set it up as a singleton, only one instance appears but only the last object int the list to make the request gets to use it.

Is there a way I can pop up the dialog, leave other windows available to the user, and have the other objects wait their turn to use the dialog?

Looks like you need some sort of queue. It might help if you posted some of your code. — Aaron Kurtzhals, Aug 15 '12 at 22:57
Aaron, the objects are in a queue of sorts already. I just don't know how to make them wait until the JDialog closes/hides before advancing the queue. — flibberty gibbet, Aug 15 '12 at 23:42
Solved by setting the original window's Modal Exclusion Type to "Application" and toggling back to "No Exclude" before opening other, "fully" modal dialogs. — flibberty gibbet, Aug 16 '12 at 01:25
@flibbertygibbet: If that solved it, you can post it as an answer to your own question. — Mechanical snail, Aug 16 '12 at 07:35

score 2 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:12

As noted in comments, the problem can be addressed by altering the modality of the parent Window. On the downside, the "behavior is implementation-dependent."

As an alternative, consider traversing the objects in the background thread of a SwingWorker and adding new candidates to a suitable component, e.g. JList, JTable, or JTabbedPane. Selecting an element form the component would bring up a conventional modal dialog, removing the element on completion. A related example is shown here. Each of the suggested components can be labeled with an icon representing its status.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 26 '12 at 14:58

0

Solved this by setting the original window's ModalExclusionType to "application" and toggling back to "no exclude" once finished.

answered Sep 26 '12 at 14:58

flibberty gibbet

21
3

Want a JDialog to be "modal" but not block other windows

2 Answers2