Yea. After replying I did some more research and found a better way than what I thought.

Thanks though.

Java2D

Thanks, but I'm not that stupid. If I wanted a regular button I'd use one. You probably just didn't see the bolded and underlined word "custom" in my list? I could probably extend JButton and override paint or whatever, but that's what I edited into my post basically and I'm just asking people if that's the proper way to do it.

I'm making a multiplayer RPG with a friend. I've basically finished writing the server skeleton (feel free to take a look and tell me what you think), but there isn't much more I can do until we work on the client and get some stuff sent to the server to interpret.

What I need help with right now is the best way to handle a graphical user interface. I need help with the entire thing in general, like:

• When do you paint it?
• How can you have intractable features, like custom buttons.

A good example would be the minecraft 'options' menu, how they have custom input fields:


Any help is appreciated.

EDIT - Ok I think I know how to do buttons, I can just create a custom component called CustomButton or something that has a backing image or something right? And use the mouse events to handle input?