Java Symbol Table Dialog

Question

I am trying to make a Java JDialog where symbols are displayed in a tableish way. In fact something similar to charmap for windows:

But I ran into some issues:

1. I need the JDialog to be re-sizable so I can't choose to have a table as display, because it needs to be dynamically scaled.(To clarify I mean not just the adjustment of the width of every cell, but the actual amount of the cells in the row/column)

2. The symbols obviously need to be wrapped in some sort of listener friendly component. But if I choose JButtons, everything looks wrong, because of the different character width in pixel.

3. Since I have to loop through the symbols to create JButtons I can only make Objects with no name. So how do I even find out which button was pressed?

here is what I've got so far:

Code Updated 05.12.2014

import java.awt.Dimension;

import javax.swing.JDialog;
import javax.swing.JScrollPane;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.SwingUtilities;
import javax.swing.UIManager;
import javax.swing.UnsupportedLookAndFeelException;

import java.awt.FlowLayout;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;

import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JComboBox;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.border.EmptyBorder;

import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.GridBagLayout;
import java.awt.GridBagConstraints;
import java.awt.Insets;


public class SymbolDialog extends JDialog{
private char[] math = {8704, 8707, 8708, 8710, 8712, 8713, 8715, 8716, 8721, 8723, 8728, 8730, 8734, 8743, 8744, 8745, 8746, 8747, 8776, 8793, 8800, 8801, 8804, 8805, 8834, 8835, 8836, 8837, 8838, 8839};
private final String[] sTypes = {"Math","Logic", "Arrows"};
private JPanel pan = new JPanel();

public SymbolDialog(){
    try {
        UIManager.setLookAndFeel(UIManager.getSystemLookAndFeelClassName());
    } catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
        System.out.println("catdch 1");
    } catch (InstantiationException e1) {
        System.out.println("catdch 2");
    } catch (IllegalAccessException e1) {
        System.out.println("catdch 3");
    } catch (UnsupportedLookAndFeelException e1) {
        System.out.println("catdch 4");
    }
    SwingUtilities.updateComponentTreeUI(this);

    pan.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(428, 70));
    pan.setLayout(new ColumnsFlowLayout(0,0));
    // Button Build
    for (int i = 0; i < math.length; i++){
        pan.add(new JButton(math[i]+""));
    }  
    GridBagLayout gridBagLayout = new GridBagLayout();
    gridBagLayout.columnWidths = new int[]{0, 0};
    gridBagLayout.rowHeights = new int[]{0, 0, 0};
    gridBagLayout.columnWeights = new double[]{1.0, Double.MIN_VALUE};
    gridBagLayout.rowWeights = new double[]{0.0, 1.0, Double.MIN_VALUE};
    getContentPane().setLayout(gridBagLayout);

    JPanel panel = new JPanel();
    panel.setBorder(new EmptyBorder(5,10,0,10));
    GridBagConstraints gbc_panel = new GridBagConstraints();
    gbc_panel.anchor = GridBagConstraints.WEST;
    gbc_panel.fill = GridBagConstraints.VERTICAL;
    gbc_panel.insets = new Insets(0, 0, 5, 0);
    gbc_panel.gridx = 0;
    gbc_panel.gridy = 0;
    getContentPane().add(panel, gbc_panel);
    GridBagLayout gbl_panel = new GridBagLayout();
    gbl_panel.columnWidths = new int[]{0, 0, 0};
    gbl_panel.rowHeights = new int[]{0, 0};
    gbl_panel.columnWeights = new double[]{1.0, 0.0, Double.MIN_VALUE};
    gbl_panel.rowWeights = new double[]{0.0, Double.MIN_VALUE};
    panel.setLayout(gbl_panel);

    JLabel lblCathegorie = new JLabel("Categories:");
    GridBagConstraints gbc_lblCathegorie = new GridBagConstraints();
    gbc_lblCathegorie.insets = new Insets(0, 0, 0, 5);
    gbc_lblCathegorie.gridx = 0;
    gbc_lblCathegorie.gridy = 0;
    panel.add(lblCathegorie, gbc_lblCathegorie);

    JComboBox<Object> comboBox = new JComboBox<Object>(sTypes);
    GridBagConstraints gbc_comboBox = new GridBagConstraints();
    gbc_comboBox.gridx = 1;
    gbc_comboBox.gridy = 0;
    panel.add(comboBox, gbc_comboBox);

    GridBagConstraints gbc_scrollPane = new GridBagConstraints();
    gbc_scrollPane.fill = GridBagConstraints.BOTH;
    gbc_scrollPane.gridx = 0;
    gbc_scrollPane.gridy = 1;
    getContentPane().add(pan, gbc_scrollPane);

    // Pack
    setDefaultCloseOperation(DISPOSE_ON_CLOSE);
    setResizable(true);
    pack();
    setTitle("Symbols");
    setVisible(true);

}
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent event) {
    //TODO sysout which symbol was clicked
    System.out.println(((JButton) event.getSource()).getText());
}

public static void main(String[] args){
    new SymbolDialog();
}
}

ps: I use the recommended columns_flow_layout from here

Answer 1

I would use JButton[][] in a GridLayout. For adding them to the JPanel you could use for in a for loop like so:

for(int row = 0; row < ITEMS-PER-ROW; row++){
     for(int col = 0; col < ITEMS-PER-COL; col++){
        JButton[row][col] = new JButton(/*SignToShowAs  String[][]*/)
     }
}