[gameprogrammer] Re: I wonder if I can go Remedial Applet on you all... :)
- From: "Dave Slutzkin" <daveslutzkin@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: gameprogrammer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 10:06:20 +1000
On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 06:59:38 -0500, "Mike Gillissie"
<Mike_Gillissie@xxxxxxxxxx> said:
> Hi guys - I've recently begun making my first foray into Swing-based game
> development - I'm an applications developer by trade, and while I'm OK
> with Servlets and Java in general, I haven't quite made the Applet
> connection yet.
> Basically, I think it's the layout managers that are confusing me the
> most. What I'm hoping to do is to start with a three-panel interface -
> the main one displaying tiled images representing terrain. Then a
> side-navigator (right or left, doesn't really matter) in which I can set
> up the commands and status displays, along with a mini-map of sorts.
I've never done any Applet stuff in Java, just stand-alone apps, so
there may be some issues I'm not aware of. Ignore any of this that you
already know.
> So far, the closest thing I've had to success is creating a couple of
> JPanels and placing them where I want them - without using a layout
> manager.
Generally not a good idea unless you have full control over everything
(sizes of fonts, screen resolution, etc) as otherwise any small change
can throw out all your alignment.
> What I really want, though, is to find out how Applet
> programmers typically design a nice interface with, say, a 150 pixel
> "navigator" pane, and the rest of the frame/window used for the "game"
> pane.
Well, not sure how Applet programmers do it, but here's what I'd do.
> Can anybody just suggest the combination of Swing objects and layout
> managers I should be using?
Don't know what your game will be, but I'm assuming your game pane will
be a JPanel with no children or layout manager, where you do all custom
rendering. Your navigator pane should also be a JPanel - you could do
this all with custom rendering, but I think it's more likely you'll want
Swing controls here, so it will have need some layout manager (to be
determined later). In general, any JPanel where you're going to do
custom rendering should have nothing else in it, otherwise they don't
play very nicely.
BorderLayout should be sufficient for a high-level layout manager.
BorderLayout has 5 'slots' in which to put things - NORTH, SOUTH, EAST,
WEST, CENTER. The things in each slot get their preferred size
(set/getPreferredSize()) if possible - that is, if the JPanel is at
exactly the correct size. If the size if bigger or smaller than exactly
the correct size, the NORTH and SOUTH bits (top and bottom) will be
stretched/squashed horizontally, the EAST and WEST bits (left and right)
will be stretched/squashed vertically, and the CENTER bit will be
stretched/squashed in both directions.
The upshot of this for you is that CENTER gets as much bigger as it can,
while WEST won't change in size horizontally. So if you want your
navigator pane to have a (relatively) fixed horizontal size, put that in
BorderLayout.WEST. The game pane should be in BorderLayout.CENTER, so
it gets the rest of the space.
Code would look something like this:
public class ThisIsTheGame
extends javax.swing.JApplet
{
public ThisIsTheGame()
{
super();
// This is not actually necessary because the content pane uses
// BorderLayout by default.
getContentPane().setLayout(new java.awt.BorderLayout());
buildInterface(getContentPane());
}
public void buildInterface(java.awt.Container contentPane)
{
javax.swing.JComponent navigatorPane = buildNavigatorPane();
javax.swing.JComponent gamePane = buildGamePane();
contentPane.add(navigatorPane, java.awt.BorderLayout.WEST);
contentPane.add(gamePane, java.awt.BorderLayout.CENTER);
}
public javax.swing.JComponent buildNavigatorPane()
{
// Build and return the navigator pane.
}
public javax.swing.JComponent buildGamePane()
{
// Build and return the game pane.
}
}
Is that what you're looking for, or have I missed the mark?
Dave.
--
Dave Slutzkin
Melbourne, Australia
daveslutzkin@xxxxxxxxxxx
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