Displaying a matrix in Swing

Question

Hi all,
Is there anybody who knows a easy way of displaying a matrix in Swing. It can be done by declaring a lot of buttons (64 buttons in a 8x8 matrix) and than displaying them, but there has to be a better way. Any suggestions
Greetings.
Vincent

Answer 1

You could use AWT or Java2D graphics to display them within a JPanel. Just override the paintComponent(Graphics g) method (don't forget to call super.paintComponent(g) first) and do the drawing in there.
If you need interaction, you could implement a MouseMotionListener and MouseListener to see over which element the mouse is over and in which a mouse button was clicked (or even double-clicked).
class MyMatrixPanel extends JPanel implements MouseListener, MouseMotionListener {
public void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
super.paintComponent(g);
g.setColor(Color.white);
g.fillRect(0,0,this.getWidth(),this.getHeight());
g.setColor(Color.black);
for(int i = 0; i < number_of_rows+1; i++) {
g.drawLine(x1,y1,x2,y2);
g.drawString("m00",x,y);
for(int i = 0; i < number_of_columns+1; i++)
g.drawLine(x1,y1,x2,y2);
The JPanel will need to be added to a JFrame, JDialog, or similar. You'll have to supply the coordinates, and of course this is skeletal. Let me know if this helps and if you need more info.
Robert Templeton