Need help with dialog option buttons

Question

I am trying to make a program with a menu displaying several buttons that the user can select. I've been following the "How to Make Dialogs" tutorial but the window becomes extremely long when the buttons are displayed horizontally in the same row and there doesn't seem to be a way to make the option buttons display vertically in a column rather than horizontally in a row with JOptionPane. Is there another way to do it?
URL for tutorial: http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/uiswing/components/dialog.html

Answer 1

Here's a simple example of what I mean. If you go my route, you'll understand how to do this. If on the otherhand you do rgjonathan's suggestion, you'll lose out and be forced into whatever pigeon-hole that NetBeans forces you into:
DialogExample.java: a class that creates a JPanel with vertically stacked JButtons. This JPanel can easily be placed within a JDialog.
import java.awt.GridLayout;
import java.awt.Window;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import javax.swing.BorderFactory;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
* creates a mainPanel that can be used in a JDialog
* @author Pete
class DialogExample
    private JPanel mainPanel = new JPanel();
    private String buttonStrings[] =
        "Fubar", "Snafu", "Bohica", "Subar"
    private String actionCommand = "";
    public DialogExample()
        mainPanel.setLayout(new GridLayout(0, 1, 10, 10));
        mainPanel.setBorder(BorderFactory.createEmptyBorder(15, 15, 15, 15));
        for (int i = 0; i < buttonStrings.length; i++)
            JButton btn = new JButton(buttonStrings);
mainPanel.add(btn);
btn.addActionListener(new ActionListener()
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)
actionCommand = e.getActionCommand(); // set actionCommand field
Window window = (Window)mainPanel.getTopLevelAncestor();
window.dispose(); // close this window
* @return a JPanel that can be used in a JDialog
public JPanel getMainPanel()
return mainPanel;
* @return String: actionCommand corresponding to the button pushed
public String getActionCommand()
return actionCommand;
}DialogTest.java:  creates a trivial JFrame with a JButton that when pressed creates a JDialog with the JPanel from the class above.  Gets the name of the button pressed in the dialog and prints to screen.import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JDialog;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
public class DialogTest
private static void createAndShowGUI()
final JFrame frame = new JFrame("Test");
final DialogExample dialogEg = new DialogExample();
JButton openDialog = new JButton("Open Dialog");
openDialog.addActionListener(new ActionListener()
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent arg0)
boolean modal = true; //modal dialog or not?
JDialog dialog = new JDialog(frame, "Dialog", modal); // construct dialog
dialog.getContentPane().add(dialogEg.getMainPanel());
dialog.pack();
dialog.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
dialog.setVisible(true); // show it
System.out.println(dialogEg.getActionCommand()); // find out which button pressed
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
frame.getContentPane().add(openDialog);
frame.pack();
frame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
frame.setVisible(true);
public static void main(String[] args)
javax.swing.SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable()
public void run()
createAndShowGUI();