When developing Java Swing GUIs, is it always a bad idea to extend JFrame? And what about JPanel, or other JComponents? Also, what makes it bad?
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1"what makes it bad?" Why do you think it's bad? – Kirk Woll Mar 16 '12 at 17:46
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1Who said it's a bad idea? As far as I can tell, `JPanel` is *expected* to be extended from for custom components. – Maxpm Mar 16 '12 at 17:47
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What about JFrame? I honestly don't know what makes it bad. People just make claims that it's bad without giving any reasoning behind it. I'm curious as to what's actually wrong with it. – Bob Mar 16 '12 at 17:48
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2@Bob Who are those people? I've never heard that. – Maxpm Mar 16 '12 at 17:49
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@mKorbel I am very curious to know why it is a bad idea – prajeesh kumar Mar 16 '12 at 17:58
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2@Maxpm JPanel (worse JFrame) are extended way more often than they should be, almost always for the false reasons.. because how often do you really create a new general swing component for your application? If it doesn't make sense to use your newly created `NewFrame` in other programs it shouldn't be using inheritance. Composition makes life much easier. – Voo Mar 16 '12 at 18:00
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@prajeesh kumar answer to this question must be correct and wrotten in English (there is my dis_advantage) language – mKorbel Mar 16 '12 at 18:02
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Usually it's a rule of thumb to only subclass if you need to customize the Swing component.
Moonbeam
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@KirkWoll, As in add behavior or LaF not native to the component, or see [this](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/customize?s=t). – Moonbeam Mar 16 '12 at 17:51
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1@mKorbel Good you added the key term 'Composition versus Inheritance', since that is what it comes down to. – Andrew Thompson Mar 16 '12 at 18:10
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@KirkWoll Usually that would be a necessary override of at least one method. – Tom Hawtin - tackline Mar 21 '12 at 16:08