In Chapter 15 of Liang's Intro to Java Programming (7th ed.), he introduces a program to make a (2-D) ball on a JPanel and enlarge it upon clicking enlarge/shrink buttons. I've modified the program so that it also 1) enlarges/shrinks the ball if the user clicks/option+clicks, 2) allows you to pick the color of the ball by pressing a button, and 3) allows you to move the circle by dragging it with your mouse.
The last modification is what was giving me trouble for a while, because I wanted to center the ball at the beginning, but then allow the user to move the ball around with the mouse. The solution I came up with was to have the paintComponent method only set the x- and y-coordinates of the ball relative to getWidth() and getHeight() the first time it paints. To do that, I added a paintCount variable to the BallCanvas class and made an if statement so that it would only execute the first time around. When I was trying to figure out how to do this initially, I saw other solutions, like the ones given here: Why can't I access my panel's getWidth() and getHeight() functions? , but I find my solution much simpler.
So the question is: is what I did considered bad coding style? Would a professional programmer scoff at this solution? Or is it OK?
More importantly, is there a better (but also, relatively simple) way to do this that doesn't involve setting up a counter?
Here are the relevant bits of code:
The beginning of BallCanvas:
public static class BallCanvas extends JPanel {
private int radius = 20;
private Color color = Color.BLACK;
private int ballX;
private int ballY;
private int paintCount = 0;
...
The move method (which responds to a MouseDragged event):
public void move(MouseEvent e){
ballX = e.getX() - radius;
ballY = e.getY() - radius;
repaint();
}
The paintComponent method:
protected void paintComponent(Graphics g){
super.paintComponent(g);
g.setColor(color);
if(paintCount < 1){
ballX = getWidth()/2 - radius;
ballY = getHeight()/2 - radius;
}
g.fillOval(ballX, ballY, 2*radius, 2*radius);
paintCount++;
}
Full program:
// Reference: Liang's Intro to Java Programming
import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
public class ControlBall extends JFrame{
private JButton jbtRed = new JButton("Red");
private JButton jbtGreen = new JButton("Green");
private JButton jbtBlue = new JButton("Blue");
private JButton jbtBlack = new JButton("Black");
private BallCanvas canvas = new BallCanvas();
private JMenuBar menuBar = new JMenuBar();
private JMenu menu = new JMenu("Edit");
private JMenuItem miEnlarge = new JMenuItem("Enlarge");
private JMenuItem miShrink = new JMenuItem("Shrink");
public ControlBall(){
menuBar.add(menu);
menu.add(miEnlarge);
menu.add(miShrink);
JPanel panel = new JPanel();
panel.add(jbtRed);
panel.add(jbtGreen);
panel.add(jbtBlue);
panel.add(jbtBlack);
this.add(canvas, BorderLayout.CENTER);
this.add(panel, BorderLayout.SOUTH);
this.add(menuBar, BorderLayout.NORTH);
jbtRed.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e){
canvas.setColor(Color.RED);
}
});
jbtGreen.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e){
canvas.setColor(Color.GREEN);
}
});
jbtBlue.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e){
canvas.setColor(Color.BLUE);
}
});
jbtBlack.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e){
canvas.setColor(Color.BLACK);
}
});
miEnlarge.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e){
canvas.enlarge();
}
});
miShrink.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e){
canvas.shrink();
}
});
canvas.addMouseListener(new MouseListener() {
public void mouseClicked(MouseEvent e){
canvas.changeSize(e);
}
public void mousePressed(MouseEvent e){}
public void mouseReleased(MouseEvent e){}
public void mouseEntered(MouseEvent e){}
public void mouseExited(MouseEvent e){}
});
canvas.addMouseMotionListener(new MouseMotionAdapter() {
public void mouseDragged(MouseEvent e) {
canvas.move(e);
}
});
}
public static void main(String[] args){
JFrame frame = new ControlBall();
frame.setTitle("ControlBall");
frame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
frame.setSize(400, 200);
frame.setVisible(true);
}
public static class BallCanvas extends JPanel {
private int radius = 20;
private Color color = Color.BLACK;
private int ballX;
private int ballY;
private int paintCount = 0;
public BallCanvas(){
System.out.println(getWidth() + " " + getHeight());
}
public BallCanvas(int initialRadius){
radius = initialRadius;
}
public void setColor(Color color){
this.color = color;
repaint();
}
public void changeSize(MouseEvent e){
int numClicks = e.getClickCount();
if(e.isAltDown()){
if(radius >= 6){
this.radius -= 5*numClicks;
} else{
// do nothing
}
} else{
this.radius += 5*numClicks;
}
repaint();
}
public void enlarge(){
this.radius += 5;
repaint();
}
public void shrink(){
if(radius >= 10){
this.radius -= 5;
}
repaint();
}
public void move(MouseEvent e){
ballX = e.getX() - radius;
ballY = e.getY() - radius;
repaint();
}
protected void paintComponent(Graphics g){
super.paintComponent(g);
g.setColor(color);
if(paintCount < 1){
ballX = getWidth()/2 - radius;
ballY = getHeight()/2 - radius;
}
g.fillOval(ballX, ballY, 2*radius, 2*radius);
paintCount++;
}
}
}
