Are there alternative fill styles for components?

Question

Is there an alternativfe way of filling the background of a component. ie. could you have it filled in diagonal lines?

Answer 1

Ooops, I really walked into that one. OK, I'm a believer in "put up or shut up", so fast and dirty, here's something to do hatching (I picked vertical hatching for quickness, but it's proof of concept).
import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.Graphics;
import java.awt.Insets;
import javax.swing.Icon;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
public class HatchedLabel extends JLabel {
     private Color hatchColor = null;
     public HatchedLabel() {
          super();
     public HatchedLabel(Icon image) {
          super(image);
     public HatchedLabel(Icon image, int horizontalAlignment) {
          super(image, horizontalAlignment);
     public HatchedLabel(String text) {
          super(text);
     public HatchedLabel(String text, Icon icon, int horizontalAlignment) {
          super(text, icon, horizontalAlignment);
     public HatchedLabel(String text, int horizontalAlignment) {
          super(text, horizontalAlignment);
     protected void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
          if (hatchColor != null) {
               final Insets insets = this.getInsets();
               final int lx = insets.left;
               final int ly = insets.top;
               final int rx = this.getWidth() - (insets.left + insets.right);
               final int ry = this.getHeight() - (insets.top + insets.bottom);
               g.setColor(hatchColor);
               for (int x = lx; x < rx; x += 8) {
                    g.drawLine(x, ly, x, ry);
               for (int y = ly; y < ry; y += 8) {
                    g.drawLine(lx, y, rx, y);
          super.paintComponent(g);
     public final Color getHatchColor() {
          return this.hatchColor;
     public final void setHatchColor(final Color hatchColor) {
          this.hatchColor = hatchColor;
Disclaimer: This has had near-zero testing, so I'm not claiming it actually works for anything but the simplest case. Try it and see if it does ;-)