The bane of my existance = paint() Please help!

Question

I am forever getting frustrated with trying to draw things in java and even when I went through my classes in college we hit the basics but no further with this. Basically I am attempting to set up a checker board and want to draw multiple canvases in different states obviously to render a working checker board with pieces, moves etc.
Every book and online reference that I can find has all the work done in the paint method of the canvas that is being drawn on and not from the parent(if this is even possible...is it???).
I would like to do something like this from the parent frame:
     private void initializeBlackLayers(int initState) {
          JPanel initPanel;
          // for each state the square can be in create a panel to display that state
          for (int numState = 1; numState < 11; numState++) {
               // create a new panel and set the size of the panel for the square
               initPanel = new JPanel();
               initPanel.setSize(sqSize);
               // need to figure out which state we are creating for the square and
               // then create that specific state for the current panel
               switch (numState) {
                    case 1:
                         initPanel.setBackground(Color.BLACK);  // the plain black sq
                         break;
                    case 2:
                         initPanel.setBackground(Color.BLUE);  // the plain black sq selected for move
                         break;
                    case 3:
                         //NEED TO DRAW A RED CIRCLE, BLACK BACKGROUND
                         break;
                    case 4:
                         initPanel.setBackground(Color.BLUE);
                         // NEED TO DRAW A RED CIRCLE
                         break;
                    // insert code adding new panel to this layered pane and end switch, function etcI figure I either need to set up a new class for each state of the square and draw individually(which I REALLY don't want to do, read: there has GOT to be a better way) or figure out how to set the global color and just draw a filled in oval with the current color in a generic ovalCanvas for each state in the code above in the parent class. If anyone could enlighten me, I would be forever grateful for getting me out of having an extremely frustrating time with this.

Answer 1

camickr wrote:Well, first of all why would people who have never written a Swing application no anything about the paint() method.Secondly, you should not be overriding the paint() method. Custom painting in Swing is done by overriding the paintComponent() method. Overriding paint() is the way it is done when using AWT.>
Regardless, it's still the same question, whether you are using paint or paintComponent, my question is the same: How can you get a parent class to draw multiple different canvases(if using AWT) or JPanels (if swing) without constructing the individual components individually. For example, I want to have a Frame (seeing as we are not in the swing forum) that has 2 canvases one with a red circle on a black background and one with a green triangle on a blue background. Is it possible to write this from the frame, initalize 2 canvases and again from the frame, tell the canvases what you want on them?
Start by reading the Swing tutorial on [How to Use Layered Panes|http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/uiswing/TOC.html]. The tutorial also has a section on Custom Painting.
I did, it doesn't explain what I want to do. In their example they are just coloring the background to show up so you can see the individual panes. This is where I get stuck and what I am asking about: Write the same code they use in that example but put something on those colored backgrounds as well. Can you do it from the JLayeredPane class?