Writing a GUI for my RPG

[K.I.L.E.R]

Man, how can you create 2 applets?

I want 2 applets and a frame to make my game. I have already got the in game mechanics running fine.

Random battles, 2 dungeons, different difficulty levels dependent upon dungeon, part of the world and player level, etc...

Now comes the part where I'm supposed to knock in a pretty GUI which AFAIK cannot be achieved with Swing but can be achieved with some work with applets.

Applet 1: LHS of screen -> Display player stats
Applet 2: RHS of screen -> Monster stats/Inventory button underneath monsters stats
Frame: Center of screen -> Display text from files into a TextArea.

Is there any good substitute for a TextArea?

I don't know how some of you Java game devs are able to display text on pretty surfaces.
Swing is not pretty but applets can be made to look nice but it requires a bit of work.

I'm in need of desperate help.

Thank You.

[oNyx]

Ok. I read your post 4 times, but it still doesn't make much sense

Maybe it won't be a bad idea if you draw a little sketch?

> Swing is not pretty[...]

Swing looks like you want it to look. You can change everything. You can change the colors, the borders, fonts... everything. Really.

Simple stuff with the set* methods. E.g. icons of a JButton (normal, rollover, pressed), drawing of the focus, contentAreaFilled... whatsoever.

If you want to generally change some stuff or things wich don't hava set methods, you can use UIManager.put().

E.g.
UIManager.put("ScrollBar.track",           new ColorUIResource(147,180,211));
or
UIManager.put("ToolTip.border",BorderFactory.createEmptyBorder());

And you can even change the way how specific UI* are drawn (e.g. the look of JScrollbars), by writing your own L&F (it doesn't have to be a complete L&F you know?).

[K.I.L.E.R]

Hehehe, sorry.

I'll try and break my points down to a more coherent fashion.

JTextArea -> It doesn't ley me start a new line when I want it to. Nor does it let me set colours of specific words.
I also want the border of the TextArea to be a picture.

Swing -> I want to make my JButtons look like graphics and not buttons however I want the functionality of a Swing button still available.

JPanels -> I want a different background image for different panels.

JFrame -> I want to get rid of the standard minimise, resize, exit border and replace it with a docrated border around my program. Of course the minimise, resize, exit buttons will still be there, just look different.

Thanks.

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[oNyx]

Ok. Let's see...

JTextArea -> It doesn't ley me start a new line when I want it to. Nor does it let me set colours of specific words.

Try JEditorPane. It's more flexible than JTextArea. Also swing components can display (simple) html. Example.

I also want the border of the TextArea to be a picture.

I would set the border of the JEditorPane to null... and the image stuff can be done in the Panel, wich contains it (see that quote at the end).

Swing -> I want to make my JButtons look like graphics and not buttons however I want the functionality of a Swing button still available.

A quite complete JButton:

1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12

JButton add=new JButton(a2aIcon); //usual icon add.setToolTipText("Auswahl inzufügen"); //toolTipText add.setRequestFocusEnabled(false); //no focus request add.setMargin(new Insets(0,0,0,0)); //space around the icon add.setFocusPainted(false); //that blue box add.setRolloverEnabled(true); //on by default if you set a rollover icon add.setRolloverIcon(a2bIcon); //our rollover icon add.setPressedIcon(a2cIcon); //our pressed icon add.setBorderPainted(false); //no border add.setContentAreaFilled(false); //no filling of the space add.setActionCommand("add"); //aye sir! add.addActionListener(this); //listen carefully :)

Check the documentation for the details:
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/javax/swing/JButton.html

JPanels -> I want a different background image for different panels.

Extend JPanel and override the paint method.

ugly exampel image

JFrame -> I want to get rid of the standard minimise, resize, exit border and replace it with a docrated border around my program. Of course the minimise, resize, exit buttons will still be there, just look different.

Hadn't done that so far. However, it can be done by writing a L&F wich covers that part (I think).

[K.I.L.E.R]

Hey that example looks great.

Thanks.

[DrBizzar0]

JTextArea
You'd want to use a JTextPane instead

http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/uiswing/components/text.html


Make JButtons look like graphics
JButton(Icon icon)

http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/uiswing/components/button.html


JPanels
To my knowledge there's no support for background images in JPanels. One sollution might be to make you r own Panel class extending JPanel and implementing background image support.


JFrame
One way that could be achived would be to use frame.setUndecorated(true)  and then place graphics and attach listeners yourself.

[Jeff]

Hehehe, sorry.

I'll try and break my points down to a more coherent fashion.

JTextArea -> It doesn't ley me start a new line when I want it to.

Try using a newline ("\n")  with JTextPane 

Nor does it let me set colours of specific words

Set the attributes in JTextPane's InsertText.

I also want the border of the TextArea to be a picture.

Swing supports custom border managers.  or you can do a background image in a panel and put your widgets ontop of it.

Swing -> I want to make my JButtons look like graphics and not buttons however I want the functionality of a Swing button still available.

As has already been pointed out you can set the graphics. In addition ANY swing component can be subclassed and you can override paint() with your own arbitrary paint code.

JPanels -> I want a different background image for different panels.

Just subclass JPanel and override the paint() method. i have a standard "ImagePanel" class I use that does exactly this.

JFrame -> I want to get rid of the standard minimise, resize, exit border and replace it with a docrated border around my program.

You can set a frame "Undecorated" and then draw into it yourself.

Of course the minimise, resize, exit buttons will still be there, just look different.

OR if you want exactly the same functionality you can subclass and modify a look and feel.

Big hint.  ALL an applet has to work with are AWT and Swing.  If you see it in an  Applet, you can by definition do it in AWT and/or Swing.