Connect/link buttons graphically together?

Question

Simple question, is there a way to create a sort of "button group" (no, not this), where two or more buttons are connected together. If you look at JTabbedPanes, for example, on a mac system you get this:

This is exactly what I'd like to have with a set of buttons. Pushing two or more buttons together, like seen in this post, does not work as the border layouts conflict and is also uneven:

I have been searching around for a while on anything like this but I haven't been able to find anything. Now, I do understand that I could create a whole new component from scratch, but I was wondering if there was a better way to do this.

I tried screwing around with JTabbedPanes, but these "tabs" are not buttons in the traditional sense that give you full capabilities. They are heavily restricted and in addition overall JTabbedPane is not a viable cross platform tool as I just want the look-and-feel displayed by mac.

Are there any solutions to this?

Answer 1

As @MadProgrammer says, here is an example of adding a bunch off buttons to JPanel using a FlowLayout:

import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.geom.*;
import java.util.*;
import javax.swing.*;

public class StickButtonsTest {
  private JComponent makeUI() {
    JPanel p = new JPanel();
    p.setBorder(BorderFactory.createEmptyBorder(10, 5, 0, 5));
    p.add(makeToggleButtonBar());
    return p;
  }
  private static AbstractButton makeButton(String title) {
    AbstractButton b = new JToggleButton(title) {
      @Override protected void fireStateChanged() {
        ButtonModel model = getModel();
        if (model.isSelected()) {
          setForeground(Color.ORANGE.brighter());
        } else {
          setForeground(Color.WHITE);
        }
        super.fireStateChanged();
      }
    };
    b.setHorizontalTextPosition(SwingConstants.CENTER);
    b.setBorder(BorderFactory.createEmptyBorder());
    b.setContentAreaFilled(false);
    b.setFocusPainted(false);
    b.setForeground(Color.WHITE);
    b.setBackground(new Color(0x00AEF3));
    b.setIcon(new ToggleButtonBarCellIcon());
    return b;
  }
  private static JPanel makeToggleButtonBar() {
    ButtonGroup bg = new ButtonGroup();
    JPanel p = new JPanel(new GridLayout(1, 0, 0, 0));
    for (AbstractButton b: Arrays.asList(
        makeButton("left"), makeButton("c1"),
        makeButton("c2"), makeButton("right"))) {
      bg.add(b);
      p.add(b);
    }
    return p;
  }
  public static void main(String... args) {
    EventQueue.invokeLater(() -> {
      JFrame f = new JFrame();
      f.setDefaultCloseOperation(WindowConstants.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
      f.getContentPane().add(new StickButtonsTest().makeUI());
      f.setSize(320, 240);
      f.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
      f.setVisible(true);
    });
  }
  public static void createAndShowGUI() {
  }
}

//http://ateraimemo.com/Swing/ToggleButtonBar.html
class ToggleButtonBarCellIcon implements Icon {
  @Override public void paintIcon(Component c, Graphics g, int x, int y) {
    Container parent = c.getParent();
    if (!(parent instanceof JPanel)) {
      return;
    }
    int gap = 3;
    int r = 8;
    int w = c.getWidth();
    int h = c.getHeight() - 1;

    Graphics2D g2 = (Graphics2D) g.create();
    g2.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_ANTIALIASING,
                        RenderingHints.VALUE_ANTIALIAS_ON);
    Path2D.Float p = new Path2D.Float();

    if (c == parent.getComponent(0)) {
      //:first-child
      p.moveTo(x, y + r);
      p.quadTo(x, y, x + r, y);
      p.lineTo(x + w, y);
      p.lineTo(x + w, y + h);
      p.lineTo(x + r, y + h);
      p.quadTo(x, y + h, x, y + h - r);
    } else if (c == parent.getComponent(parent.getComponentCount() - 1)) {
      //:last-child
      w--;
      p.moveTo(x, y);
      p.lineTo(x + w - r, y);
      p.quadTo(x + w, y, x + w, y + r);
      p.lineTo(x + w, y + h - r);
      p.quadTo(x + w, y + h, x + w - r, y + h);
      p.lineTo(x, y + h);
      p.moveTo(x, y + gap);
      p.lineTo(x, y + h - gap);
    } else {
      p.moveTo(x, y);
      p.lineTo(x + w, y);
      p.lineTo(x + w, y + h);
      p.lineTo(x, y + h);
      p.moveTo(x, y + gap);
      p.lineTo(x, y + h - gap);
    }
    p.closePath();

    Color ssc = new Color(1f, 1f, 1f, .2f);
    Color bgc = new Color(0f, 0f, 0f, .2f);
    if (c instanceof AbstractButton) {
      ButtonModel m = ((AbstractButton) c).getModel();
      if (m.isSelected() || m.isRollover()) {
        ssc = new Color(1f, 1f, 1f, .4f);
        bgc = new Color(1f, 1f, 1f, .1f);
      }
    }

    Area area = new Area(p);
    g2.setPaint(c.getBackground());
    g2.fill(area);
    g2.setPaint(new GradientPaint(x, y, ssc, x, y + h, bgc, true));
    g2.fill(area);
    g2.setPaint(new Color(0f, 0f, 0f, .5f));
    g2.draw(p);

    g2.dispose();
  }
  @Override public int getIconWidth() {
    return 60;
  }
  @Override public int getIconHeight() {
    return 24;
  }
}