How to put button where I want on screen.

Question

Okay I want to place my button in a certain place on the screen. Is there any way to place it at an exact pixel location? Right now it places it to the far right of my screen. I have an image that I would want it to go over too.

import java.awt.AWTException;
import java.awt.FlowLayout;
import java.awt.Rectangle;
import java.awt.Robot;
import java.awt.Toolkit;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import java.awt.event.InputEvent;
import java.awt.image.BufferedImage;
import java.awt.image.DataBuffer;
import java.awt.image.DataBufferInt;
import java.awt.image.WritableRaster;

import javax.swing.BorderFactory;
import javax.swing.ImageIcon;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JOptionPane;

public class UnfollowGUI extends JFrame{

private JLabel label;
private JButton button;

private ImageIcon bgi;
private JLabel bgl;

public static Rectangle gameSquare;

public static boolean rock = true;
public static boolean runningMine = true;
public static int stray = 0;
public static int strayCount = 0;


public static void main(String[] args) {
    UnfollowGUI gui = new UnfollowGUI ();
    gui.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE); // when click x close program
    //gui.setSize(886, 266);
    gui.pack();
    gui.setVisible(true);
    gui.setTitle("Solid Cloud Inc - Twitter Unfolower");
}

public UnfollowGUI(){

    setLayout(new FlowLayout());

    bgi = new ImageIcon(getClass().getResource("tu.png"));
    bgl = new JLabel (bgi);
    add(bgl);

    ImageIcon start = new ImageIcon(getClass().getResource("start.png"));
    button = new JButton (start);
    button.setBorder(BorderFactory.createEmptyBorder());
    button.setContentAreaFilled(false);

    add(button);

    label = new JLabel ("");
    add(label);

    Events e = new Events();
    button.addActionListener(e);
}

public class Events implements ActionListener {


    public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {

        if (e.getSource() == button) {
           label.setText("Searching");
           try {
            Unfollow();
        } catch (InterruptedException e1) {
            // TODO Auto-generated catch block
            e1.printStackTrace();
        }
        }
}

}

Answer 1

Java GUIs might have to work on a number of platforms, on different screen resolutions & using different PLAFs. As such they are not conducive to exact placement of components.

To organize the components for a robust GUI, instead use layout managers (or combinations of them), along with layout padding & borders for white space.

Answer 2

Yet another way to achieve what you describe can be done this way (there are many alternatives, but in the end, it all depends on how you want your components to be relatively positionned to each other and what happens when the size of the parent container changes):

import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.FlowLayout;
import java.net.MalformedURLException;
import java.net.URL;

import javax.swing.ImageIcon;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.SwingUtilities;

public class TestLoginGridBagLayout {

    protected void initUI() throws MalformedURLException {
        JFrame frame = new JFrame("Background image");
        frame.getContentPane().setBackground(Color.BLACK);
        frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        JLabel background = new JLabel(new ImageIcon(new URL("http://images2.layoutsparks.com/1/161318/city-lights-bridge-decoration.jpg")));
        background.setVerticalAlignment(JLabel.BOTTOM);
        background.setHorizontalAlignment(JLabel.LEFT);
        background.setLayout(new BorderLayout());
        frame.add(background);
        JPanel buttonPanel = new JPanel(new FlowLayout(FlowLayout.LEFT, 0, 0));
        buttonPanel.setOpaque(false);
        buttonPanel.add(new JButton("Some button in the bottom left"));
        background.add(buttonPanel, BorderLayout.SOUTH);
        frame.pack();
        frame.setVisible(true);
    }

    /**
     * @param args
     */
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                try {
                    new TestLoginGridBagLayout().initUI();
                } catch (MalformedURLException e) {
                    e.printStackTrace();
                }
            }
        });
    }

}

Answer 3

You can place things in the exact place you want by not using a Layout Manager. This is called absolute positioning, and you can read a tutorial on it here: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/uiswing/layout/none.html

Here's a snippet of code from inside that tutorial:

pane.setLayout(null);

JButton b1 = new JButton("one");
JButton b2 = new JButton("two");
JButton b3 = new JButton("three");

pane.add(b1);
pane.add(b2);
pane.add(b3);

Insets insets = pane.getInsets();
Dimension size = b1.getPreferredSize();
b1.setBounds(25 + insets.left, 5 + insets.top,
             size.width, size.height);
size = b2.getPreferredSize();
b2.setBounds(55 + insets.left, 40 + insets.top,
             size.width, size.height);
size = b3.getPreferredSize();
b3.setBounds(150 + insets.left, 15 + insets.top,
             size.width + 50, size.height + 20);

...//In the main method:
Insets insets = frame.getInsets();
frame.setSize(300 + insets.left + insets.right,
              125 + insets.top + insets.bottom);

That ends up looking like this: