Alarm status drawing iow: recolour JInternalFrame components

Question

Greetings,
Please have a look at this picture. It's a low res snapshot of
a few quite complicated components. Most of the functionality isn't
visible nor relevant in the example. What you're looking at is a real time
process of some sort. Things can go wrong in that process. In a previous
version of my views I'd turn the background colour of some components
red/yellow/green according to the 'alarm status' of the process. One of
my customers suggested the idea of turning everything red/yellow/green
inside those JInternalFrames (that's what you're looking at in the example).
Of course one fool can ask more than a dozen of wise men can answer
and I am not that wise, so my question is: how would one change the
colour of all components that are part of a JInternalFrame (or any
other container) such that the colour wouldn't be 100% opague but
still visible by itself and still showing the information originally present
in each individual component. iow, as if a transparent monochrome
filter were positioned in front of that entire JContainer.
In a naive way I like the idea; if the idea turns out to be too complicated
to realize I'd be happy with visual alternatives also. (such as big arrows
pointing to the JContainer where the alarm happened).
Note that these appliations run in a 'factory' environment where people
either hardly watch the screens or they watch them at quite a great
distance. The changing colours should just attract their attention so they
will walk/run/drive/ride to the screens for a second inspection.
Any ideas are appreciated.
kind regards,
Jos

Answer 1

Not sure I understand the question, but I keyed in on:
as if a transparent monochrome filter were positioned in front of that entire JContainer.So maybe you could use a GlassPane:
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import javax.swing.*;
public class GlassPaneTest extends JFrame
    public GlassPaneTest()
        final JComponent glassPane = new JComponent()
            public void paintComponent(Graphics g)
                g.setColor( getBackground() );
                g.fillRect(0, 0, getSize().width, getSize().height);
        glassPane.setOpaque( false );
        glassPane.setBackground( new Color(240, 20, 20, 100) );
        setGlassPane( glassPane );
        glassPane.addKeyListener( new KeyAdapter()
            public void keyPressed(KeyEvent e)
                e.consume();
        glassPane.addMouseListener( new MouseAdapter()
            public void mousePressed(MouseEvent e)
                e.consume();
        final JButton button = new JButton( "Click Me" );
        button.setMnemonic('c');
        button.addActionListener( new ActionListener()
            public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)
                   glassPane.setCursor(Cursor.getPredefinedCursor(Cursor.WAIT_CURSOR));
                   glassPane.setVisible( true );
                   glassPane.requestFocus();
                   Thread thread = new Thread()
                        public void run()
                            try { this.sleep(5000); }
                            catch (InterruptedException ie) {}
                             glassPane.setVisible( false );
                             glassPane.setCursor(null);
                thread.start();
        getContentPane().add(new JLabel("NORTH"), BorderLayout.NORTH );
        getContentPane().add( button );
        getContentPane().add(new JTextField(), BorderLayout.SOUTH);
    public static void main(String[] args)
        GlassPaneTest frame = new GlassPaneTest();
        frame.setDefaultCloseOperation( EXIT_ON_CLOSE );
        frame.setSize(300, 300);
        frame.setLocationRelativeTo( null );
        frame.setVisible(true);
}The Swing tutorial on [url http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/uiswing/components/rootpane.html]How to Use Glass Panes shows how you can also do a simple drawing (your arrow?) on the glass pane.