How can I create and dispose of my forms created with IntelliJ's GUI builder

Question

I have created a form with IntelliJ's GUI builder, it has a working main() method, the form works properly and has some listeners attached.

In addition to that I have a custom class where I want to call that GUI I created with IntelliJ's GUI builder. I can accomplish this by copying the code within the "main" method in the GUI's class and placing it in my custom class and if I run my custom class the form is indeed displayed.

But thats about all I can do with the created GUI, I can only call it. I can't do other things like dispose that GUI form instance (frame.dispose()) and open another form because I don't know how to get access to the frame instance from my custom class.

Can someone please assist me with this? I thought it would save me a lot of time if I used the GUI builder as opposed to writing the GUI code from scratch for several forms.

1) See [The Use of Multiple JFrames, Good/Bad Practice?](http://stackoverflow.com/q/9554636/418556) 2) *"I thought it would save me a lot of time if I used the GUI builder as opposed to writing the GUI code from scratch for several forms."* .. that's funny! Unless you understand how to code a GUI using Java code (not GUI builder), the 'automagic' tools will simply slow everything down. — Andrew Thompson, Apr 10 '18 at 01:08
@AndrewThompson Yes I understand how to create GUI's in Java code and have done so many times. I decided to try out IntelliJ's GUI builder for the first time on this particular project I am working on. Its been a pleasant and speedy process using the GUI builder but it has its limits as stated by the IntelliJ team. — FlashspeedIfe, Apr 10 '18 at 06:34

ice1000 · Answer 1 · 2018-04-11T01:14:38.793

First, give a name to your root panel:

Then create a getter for it, and you can use it in a JFrame by

JFrame f = new JFrame();
f.add(new YourGuiClass().getMainPanel());
f.setVisible(true);

When you want to dispose it, dispose the JFrame instance should work.

Edit

You said you want to dispose the JFrame in your GUI form class logic, try this:

class YourGuiClass {
    private JFrame f = new JFrame();
    private JPanel mainPanel;

    public void load() {
       f.add(mainPanel);
       f.setVisible(true);
    }

    public void dispose() {
       f.dispose();
    }
}

By this you can operate the GUI form class without knowing anything related to Swing in the main function:

public static void main(String... args) {
   YourGuiClass myGuiClass = new YourGuiClass();
   myGuiClass.load(); // it now shows itself
   if (someLogic()) myGuiClass.dispose(); // you can
   // also call this elsewhere as you like
}

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 10 '18 at 10:10

I solved the problem by creating a method in the GUI form class called load() which contains the JFrame setup

GUI Form Class

public void load()
{
    JFrame frame = new JFrame( "Login Form" );
    frame.setContentPane( new LoginForm().mainPanel );
    frame.setDefaultCloseOperation( WindowConstants.DISPOSE_ON_CLOSE );
    frame.pack();
    frame.setLocationRelativeTo( null );
    frame.setVisible( true );
}

and then in my main class I called it with new LoginForm().load();.

In order to dispose of the initial GUI form and open another one I created a helper method inside the GUI form class called getMainFrame()

private JFrame getMainFrame()
{
    return (JFrame) SwingUtilities.getWindowAncestor( this.mainPanel );
}

after that inside the GUI form class constructor there is logic to dispose of the frame when a condition is met

if (age.equals("42"))
{
    //load the appropriate form
    new MainForm().load();

    //dispose of this current form
    this.getMainFrame().dispose();
}

I really appreciate your clearly written answer but it didn't solve my problem. With your answer I was able to show and dispose of the frame but that was only possible from my programs entry point, I wanted to dispose of the frame from logic embedded within the GUI form class. — FlashspeedIfe, Apr 10 '18 at 20:24
Why don't you pass the `JFrame` instance as a constructor parameter to the GUI form class? This will make it possible to `dispose` the `JFrame` inside the GUI form class. — ice1000, Apr 11 '18 at 01:11

How can I create and dispose of my forms created with IntelliJ's GUI builder

2 Answers2

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