Need ideas on how to visually separate jtoolbars

Question

Hi,
I have placed a JToolbar with 8 buttons (icon-only display) on top of my application.
However, I would like to visually separate the buttons and split them into 3 distinct groups. One solution could be the use of the setName() method, and the use of 3 JToolbars but it does not show while docked.
any ideas?

Answer 1

this might be one way
import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.*;
class Testing
  public void buildGUI()
    JToolBar toolbar = new JToolBar("tools");
    toolbar.add(new JButton(new ImageIcon("test3.gif")));
    toolbar.add(new JButton(new ImageIcon("test4.gif")));
    JButton b = new JButton();
    b.setEnabled(false);
    b.setBorder(BorderFactory.createEmptyBorder(5,5,5,5));//try 10,15 etc
    toolbar.add(b);
    toolbar.add(new JButton(new ImageIcon("test5.gif")));
    toolbar.add(new JButton(new ImageIcon("test6.gif")));
    toolbar.add(new JButton(new ImageIcon("test7.gif")));
    JFrame f = new JFrame();
    f.getContentPane().add(toolbar,BorderLayout.PAGE_START);
    f.setSize(200,100);
    f.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
    f.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
    f.setVisible(true);
  public static void main(String[] args)
    SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable(){
      public void run(){
        new Testing().buildGUI();
}