Placing a

Question

Hello all.
How could I redraw a JButton to show a status light inside the JButton's boundries? Here is same spiffy ASCII art (ah, that takes me back) of what I'm wanting to do:
+--------------------+
|                    |
|                    |
|     +--------+     |
|     |        |     |
|     +--------+     |
+--------------------+The inner rectangle would be a colored area which "lights up" after the button is pressed. It could then change based on certain constraints of the system -- so a JToggleButton might be down+green for on and okay, or down+red for on but in error.
Could this accomplish by overriding the draw function; calling the super() and then drawing the box over the button? Is there an exsiting pane I should draw to, or should I create a new pane to place over the button?
Is the above just way off and should I be slapped? Is there a more proper way of doing something like this?
Thanks for any help!

Answer 1

You could always use the setSelectedIcon method. This simple example might give you some ideas:
import javax.swing.*;
public class ToggleTest extends JFrame {
    public ToggleTest() {
        setDefaultCloseOperation(EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        JToggleButton button = new JToggleButton(new ButtonIcon(Color.GREEN));
        button.setSelectedIcon(new ButtonIcon(Color.RED));
        JPanel p = new JPanel();
        p.add(button);
        getContentPane().add(p, BorderLayout.CENTER);
        pack();
    private static class ButtonIcon implements Icon {
        private Color color;
        public ButtonIcon(Color color) {
            this.color = color;
        public int getIconHeight() {
            return 16;
        public int getIconWidth() {
            return 16;
        public void paintIcon(Component c, Graphics g, int x, int y) {
            Color saved = g.getColor();
            g.setColor(color);
            g.fillRect(x, y, getIconWidth(), getIconHeight());
            g.setColor(saved);
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        final ToggleTest tt = new ToggleTest();
        SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
            public void run() {
                tt.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
                tt.setVisible(true);
}