(Another) problem with custom painting using JApplet and JPanel

Question

Hi all,
I posted regarding this sort of issue yesterday (http://forums.sun.com/message.jspa?messageID=10883107). I fixed the issue I was having, but have run into another issue. I've tried solving this myself to no avail.
Basically I'm working on creating the GUI for my JApplet and it has a few different JPanels which I will be painting to, hence I'm using custom painting. My problem is that the custom painting works fine on the mainGUI() class, but not on the rightGUI() class. My code is below:
import javax.swing.*;
import javax.swing.border.*;
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.awt.image.*;
import java.io.*;
import javax.imageio.*;
public class TetrisClone extends JApplet {
     public void init() {
          setSize( 450, 500 );
          Container content = getContentPane();
          content.add( new mainGUI(), BorderLayout.CENTER );
          content.add( new rightGUI() , BorderLayout.LINE_END );
class mainGUI extends JPanel {
     // Main bit where blocks fall
     public mainGUI() {
          setBackground( new Color(68,75,142) );
          setPreferredSize( new Dimension( 325, 500 ) );
          validate();
     public Dimension getPreferredSize() {
          return new Dimension( 450, 500 );
     public void paintComponent( Graphics g ) {
          super.paintComponent(g);
          // As a test. This shows up fine.
          g.setColor( Color.black );
          g.fillRect(10,10,100,100);
          g.setColor( Color.white );
          g.drawString("Main",45,55);
class rightGUI extends JPanel {
     BufferedImage img = null;
     int currentLevel = 0;
     int currentScore = 0;
     int currentLines = 0;
     public rightGUI() {
          // The right panel. Has quite a few bits. Starts here..
          FlowLayout flow = new FlowLayout();
          flow.setVgap( 20 );
          setLayout( flow );
          setPreferredSize( new Dimension( 125, 500 ) );
          setBackground( new Color(27,34,97) );
          setBorder( BorderFactory.createMatteBorder(0,2,0,0,Color.black) );
          // Next block bit
          JPanel rightNext = new JPanel();
          rightNext.setPreferredSize( new Dimension( 100, 100 ) );
          //rightNext.setBackground( new Color(130,136,189) );
          rightNext.setOpaque( false );
          rightNext.setBorder( BorderFactory.createEtchedBorder(EtchedBorder.LOWERED) );
          Font rightFont = new Font( "Courier", Font.BOLD, 18 );
          // The player's playing details
          JLabel rightLevel = new JLabel("Level: " + currentLevel, JLabel.LEFT );
          rightLevel.setFont( rightFont );
          rightLevel.setForeground( Color.white );
          JLabel rightScore = new JLabel("Score: " + currentScore, JLabel.LEFT );
          rightScore.setFont( rightFont );
          rightScore.setForeground( Color.white );
          JLabel rightLines = new JLabel("Lines: " + currentLines, JLabel.LEFT );
          rightLines.setFont( rightFont );
          rightLines.setForeground( Color.white );
          JPanel margin = new JPanel();
          margin.setPreferredSize( new Dimension( 100, 50 ) );
          margin.setBackground( new Color(27,34,97) );
          JButton rightPause = new JButton("Pause");
          try {
              img = ImageIO.read(new File("MadeBy.gif"));
          catch (IOException e) { }
          add( rightNext );
          add( rightLevel );
          add( rightScore );
          add( rightLines );
          add( margin );
          add( rightPause );
          validate();
     public Dimension getPreferredSize() {
               return new Dimension( 125, 500 );
     public void paintComponent( Graphics g ) {
          super.paintComponent(g);
          g.setColor( Color.black );
          g.drawString( "blah", 425, 475 ); // Doesn't show up
          g.drawImage( img, 400, 400, null ); // Nor this!
          System.out.println( "This bit gets called fine" );
}Any help would be greatly appreciated. I've read loads of swing and custom painting tutorials and code samples but am still running into problems.
Thanks,
Tristan Perry

Answer 1

Many thanks for reminding me about the error catching - I've added a System.out.println() call now. Anywhoo, the catch block never gets run; the image get call works fine.
My problem was/is:
"My problem is that the custom painting works fine on the mainGUI() class, but not on the rightGUI() class. My code is below:"
I guess I should have expanded on that. Basically whatever I try to output in the public void paintComponent( Graphics g ) method of the rightGUI class doesn't get output.
So this doesn't output anything:
g.drawString( "blah", 425, 475 ); // Doesn't show up
g.drawImage( img, 400, 400, null ); // Nor this!
I've checked and experimented with setOpaque(false), however this doesn't seem to be caused by any over-lapping JPanels or anything.
Let me know if I can expand on this :)
Many thanks,
Tristan Perry
Edited by: TristanPerry on Dec 10, 2009 8:40 AM