Changing applet background

Question

hi i've created my applet successfully, but would now like to change it's appearance primarily so it isn't a grey square box.
i've created an image to use as a 'background' (it does more than just change the colour) but when it loads up, the image over writes everything (except a canvas object i have that contains a graph). When i click the mouse over the blank areas some of the objects that should be displayed appear.
how can i make the image go to the back ?
I have added the image object using the paint method, is this where i have gone wrong?
Thanks

Answer 1

/*  <applet code="AWTBackground" width="400" height="300"></applet>
*  use: >appletviewer AWTBackground.java
import java.applet.Applet;
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.io.*;
import java.net.*;
import javax.imageio.ImageIO;
public class AWTBackground extends Applet
    public void init()
        BackgroundPanel background = new BackgroundPanel();
        GraphCanvas canvas = new GraphCanvas();
        BackgroundAction action = new BackgroundAction(background, canvas);
        setLayout(new BorderLayout());
        add(background, "Center");
        add(action.getButtonPanel(), "South");
    public static void main(String[] args)
        Applet applet = new AWTBackground();
        Frame f = new Frame();
        f.addWindowListener(new WindowAdapter()
            public void windowClosing(WindowEvent e)
                System.exit(0);
        f.add(applet);
        f.setSize(400,300);
        f.setLocation(200,200);
        applet.init();
        applet.start();
        f.setVisible(true);
class BackgroundAction
    BackgroundPanel backgroundPanel;
    GraphCanvas graphCanvas;
    GridBagConstraints gbc;
    public BackgroundAction(BackgroundPanel p, GraphCanvas c)
        backgroundPanel = p;
        graphCanvas = c;
        gbc = new GridBagConstraints();
        backgroundPanel.setLayout(new GridBagLayout());
        backgroundPanel.add(graphCanvas, gbc);
    public Panel getButtonPanel()
        final Button
            showButton = new Button("show graph"),
            removeButton = new Button("remove graph");
        ActionListener l = new ActionListener()
            public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)
                Button button = (Button)e.getSource();
                if(button == showButton)
                    backgroundPanel.add(graphCanvas, gbc);
                if(button == removeButton)
                    backgroundPanel.remove(graphCanvas);
                backgroundPanel.validate();
                backgroundPanel.repaint();
        showButton.addActionListener(l);
        removeButton.addActionListener(l);
        Panel panel = new Panel();
        panel.add(showButton);
        panel.add(removeButton);
        return panel;
class BackgroundPanel extends Panel
    Image image;
    int imageWidth, imageHeight;
    public BackgroundPanel()
        loadImage();
        setBackground(Color.black);
    public void paint(Graphics g)
        super.paint(g);
        int width = getWidth();
        int height = getHeight();
        int x = (width - imageWidth)/2;
        int y = (height - imageHeight)/2;
        g.drawImage(image, x, y, this);
    public void update(Graphics g)
        paint(g);
    private void loadImage()
        String fileName = "images/bclynx.jpg";
        try
            URL url = getClass().getResource(fileName);
            image = ImageIO.read(url);
        catch(MalformedURLException mue)
            System.out.println("Bad URL: " + mue.getMessage());
        catch(IOException ioe)
            System.out.println("Unable to read image: " + ioe.getMessage());
        imageWidth = image.getWidth(this);
        imageHeight = image.getHeight(this);
    public Dimension getPreferredSize()
        return new Dimension(imageWidth, imageHeight);
class GraphCanvas extends Canvas
    final int PAD = 15;
    public GraphCanvas()
        setBackground(Color.white);
    public void paint(Graphics g)
        super.paint(g);
        Graphics2D g2 = (Graphics2D)g;
        g2.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_ANTIALIASING,
                            RenderingHints.VALUE_ANTIALIAS_ON);
        int w = getWidth();
        int h = getHeight();
        // ordinate
        g.drawLine(PAD, PAD, PAD, h - PAD);
        // abcissa
        g.drawLine(PAD, h -PAD, w - PAD, h - PAD);
        // line
        g.drawLine(PAD, (h - PAD)*3/4, w - PAD, PAD);
    public Dimension getPreferredSize()
        return new Dimension(250,125);
}