Canvas...somewhere to start???

Question

Can anyone recommend a good place to start in working out how to use the canvas class and graphics.
There seem to be no simple examples on the net from my googling. All I want is a simple example of a canvas with a line drawn on it, nothing fancy, just somewhere easy to start!!!
Cheers for any help
Alex

Answer 1

Don't use a canvas, draw in a JPanel...
public class MyCanvas extends JPanel {
  public void paint(Graphics g) {
    super.paint(g);
    drawSomething(g);
  public void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
    super.paintComponent(g);
    drawSomething(g);
  private drawSomething(Graphics g) {
    // draws a line from (10,10) to (50,50)
    g.setColor(Color.red);
    g.drawLine(10,10,50,50);
// Make a JFrame and instantiate a MyCanvas object. Set the preferred size of your canvas object to at least(100,100). Put the MyCanvas object in your JFrame's content pane. You'll see a small red line.