How to create a bordeless and titleless dialog or frame?

Question

Hi people,
I am trying to do a simple start up screen for my application. I have done the graphics for the startup screen and save as filename.gif. I am looking for a container or a way to paint my the gif so that it looks like a startup screen. I have considered JFrame but haven't found a way to remove the window's title bar. Should I use JDialog?.. Is there a way for me to remove the top title bar. Also anybody knows how I could set my startup screen to be visible for a set period of time and then later display?
AG

Answer 1

If your application is out of swing, you can use JWindow, of your application is out of regular components, use Window. I'm more experiancedin swing and I know there are methods to get the users screen size and then from that info you can center the window on the screen. Just don't forget to terminate the window, otherwise people will get mad with an "unclosable" window (they'd have to CTRL+ALT+Del it to close it).
I have an example: (for Swing, but I'm sure it'll be useful)
package com.foley.utility;
import java.awt.*;
import java.beans.*;
import javax.swing.*;
* A window that contains an image.
* @author Mike Foley
public class SplashWindow extends JWindow {
     * The Icon displayed in the window.
    private Icon splashIcon;
     * A label used to display the Icon.
    private JLabel iconLabel;
     * Bound property support and name constants.
    private PropertyChangeSupport changeSupport;
    public static final String SPLASHICON_PROPERTY = "SplashIcon";
     * SplashWindow, null constructor.
    public SplashWindow() {
        this( null );
     * SplashWindow, constructor.
     * @param splashIcon�The Icon to view in the window.
    public SplashWindow( Icon splashIcon ) {
        super();
        iconLabel = new JLabel();
        iconLabel.setBorder( BorderFactory.createRaisedBevelBorder() );
        getContentPane().add( iconLabel, BorderLayout.CENTER );
        setSplashIcon( splashIcon );
     * Set the image displayed in the window.
     * This is a bound property named SPLASHICON_PROPERTY.
     * If this property is changed when the window is
     * visible, the window is NOT re-centered on the screen.
     * @param splashIcon�The icon to draw in the window.
    public void setSplashIcon( Icon splashIcon ) {
        Icon old = this.splashIcon;
        this.splashIcon = splashIcon;
        iconLabel.setIcon( splashIcon );
        pack();
        if( changeSupport != null ) {
            changeSupport.firePropertyChange( SPLASHICON_PROPERTY,
                                              old, splashIcon );
     * Extend the setVisible method to center this window
     * on the screen before being displayed.
     * @param visible�True if showing the window, false if hiding.
    public void setVisible( boolean visible ) {
        if( visible ) {
            // Display the window in the center of the screen.
            Dimension screenSize = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getScreenSize();
            Dimension size = getSize();
            int x;
            int y;
            x = screenSize.width / 2 - size.width / 2;
            y = screenSize.height / 2 - size.height / 2;
                setBounds( x, y, size.width, size.height);
        // Let super show or hide the window.
        super.setVisible( visible );
     * Need to handle PropertyChangeListeners here until this
     * type of code is moved from JComponent to Component.
    public synchronized void addPropertyChangeListener(PropertyChangeListener listener) {
        if (changeSupport == null) {
            changeSupport = new PropertyChangeSupport(this);
        changeSupport.addPropertyChangeListener(listener);
    public synchronized void removePropertyChangeListener(PropertyChangeListener listener) {
        if (changeSupport != null) {
            changeSupport.removePropertyChangeListener(listener);
} // SplashWindow