Know how to change the outline shape of a tooltip?

Question

Hi All,
I was wondering if anybody knows how to change the shape of a tooltip popup box?
I've implemented my own UI delegate for ToolTipUI and overridden the paint( Graphics g, JComponent c ) method which I thought would have allowed me to completely control the rendering of the tooltip, box and all. But what I discovered was that even when I did nothing inside this method, the rectangular popup window was still appearing (I stepped through the code, and the correct instance of UI was being used, not the one that may have been defined by UIManager.set( "ToolTipUI", "foo.Bar" )) After a little more investigation, I ended up in ToolTipManager.showTipWindow() which eventually calls
PopupFactory popupFactory = PopupFactory.getSharedInstance();
tipWindow = popupFactory.getPopup(insideComponent, tip, location.x, location.y);
tipWindow.show();To try to overcome this, as a test I extended JButton with the following constructor:
public TestButton() {
    super();
    setUI( new MyCustomUI() );
    ToolTipManager.sharedInstance().unregisterComponent( this );
}but this didn't solve the problem either. Has anybody got any ideas on this?
Cheers,
Paul.

Answer 1

Try this.
regards,
Stas
import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.awt.image.*;
import java.awt.geom.*;
public class Test {
    JScrollPane scroll;
    JPanel p=new JPanel(new BorderLayout());
    Robot robot=new Robot();
    public Test()  throws Exception {
        final JFrame frame=new JFrame();
        frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        frame.getContentPane().add(p);
        JButton b=new JButton("Test balloon!");
        b.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
            public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
                TransparentFrame frame1=new TransparentFrame();
                int x=frame.getX()-100;
                if (x<0) x=0;
                int y=frame.getY()-100;
                if (y<0) y=0;
                frame1.setBounds(x,y,100,100);
                frame1.createBalloon();
                frame1.setVisible(true);
        frame.getContentPane().add(b);
        frame.setBounds(200,200,120,50);
        frame.show();
    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        new Test();
class TransparentFrame extends JWindow {
    Robot robot;
    BufferedImage screenImg;
    Rectangle screenRect;
    MyPanel contentPanel=new MyPanel();
    boolean userActivate=false;
    Area Balloon;
    public TransparentFrame() {
        super();
        createScreenImage();
        contentPanel.Balloon=Balloon;
        this.setContentPane(contentPanel);
        this.addComponentListener(new ComponentAdapter() {
            public void componentHidden(ComponentEvent e) {}
            public void componentMoved(ComponentEvent e) {
                resetUnderImg();
                repaint();
            public void componentResized(ComponentEvent e) {
                resetUnderImg();
                repaint();
            public void componentShown(ComponentEvent e) {}
        this.addWindowListener(new WindowAdapter() {
            public void windowClosing(WindowEvent e) {
            public void windowClosed(WindowEvent e) {
            public void windowOpened(WindowEvent e) {
            public void windowIconified(WindowEvent e) {
            public void windowDeiconified(WindowEvent e) {
            public void windowActivated(WindowEvent e) {
            public void windowDeactivated(WindowEvent e) {
                Balloon=null;
    protected void createScreenImage() {
        try {
            if (robot==null)
                robot=new Robot();
        catch (AWTException ex) {
            ex.printStackTrace();
        Dimension screenSize=Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getScreenSize();
        screenRect=new Rectangle(0,0,screenSize.width,screenSize.height);
        screenImg=robot.createScreenCapture(screenRect);
    public void createBalloon() {
        Rectangle bounds=new Rectangle(0,0,getWidth(),getHeight());
        Balloon=new Area(new Rectangle(bounds));
        System.err.println(Balloon.getBounds());
        RoundRectangle2D content=new RoundRectangle2D.Double(0,0,getWidth(),getHeight()/3,20,20);
        Polygon polygon=new Polygon(new int[] {20,getWidth()/2,getWidth()},new int[] {getHeight()/3,getHeight()/3,getHeight()},3);
        Area a=new Area(new Rectangle(bounds));
        a.subtract(new Area(content));
        a.subtract(new Area(polygon));
        Balloon.subtract(a);
        contentPanel.Balloon=Balloon;
    public void resetUnderImg() {
        if (robot!=null && screenImg!=null) {
            Rectangle frameRect=getBounds();
            int x=frameRect.x;
            contentPanel.paintX=0;
            contentPanel.paintY=0;
            if (x<0) {
                contentPanel.paintX=-x;
                x=0;
            int y=frameRect.y;
            if (y<0) {
                contentPanel.paintY=-y;
                y=0;
            int w=frameRect.width;
            if (x+w>screenImg.getWidth())
                w=screenImg.getWidth()-x;
            int h=frameRect.height;
            if (y+h>screenImg.getHeight())
                h=screenImg.getHeight()-y;
            contentPanel.underFrameImg=screenImg.getSubimage(x,y,w,h);
class MyPanel extends JPanel {
    BufferedImage underFrameImg;
    Area Balloon;
    int paintX=0;
    int paintY=0;
    public MyPanel() {
        super();
        setOpaque(true);
    public void paint(Graphics g) {
        super.paint(g);
    protected void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
        super.paintComponent(g);
        g.drawImage(underFrameImg,paintX,paintY,null);
        if (Balloon!=null) {
            g.setColor(Color.yellow);
            ((Graphics2D)g).fill(Balloon);
        g.setColor(Color.red);
        g.drawString("Balloon test!",10,20);
}