Window that slides into view

Question

Hi all, I'm looking to add a little bit of Swing eye-candy.
I have a little pop-up window that informs the user that their file has saved after they hit "save" or Ctr-S. I need it to be noticeable (so that they are assured that their file did indeed save), yet out of the way and not requiring any action on their part (no "Ok" button).
Currently I have a little JWindow that appears at the bottom of the frame when they save, and disappears after two seconds. However, I'm looking to make the application look a little polished, so I wanted something a little fancier.
Does anyone know of a way to get a JWindow (or any other kind of internal, non-modal frame or dialog) to slide in from the edge of a parent frame? I'd want it to look like it was being pushed in, so the whole thing would slide into view in one piece (i.e. not stretching). Or a similar kind of eye-candy that would be simple to implement (maybe fade-in fade-out)?
Any help greatly appreciated, thanks!

Answer 1

Hey that works great! Using null layout makes a lot of sense.
I couldn't get it to be both fast and smooth -- changing the delay/repeat time to 0 doesn't make it significantly faster, so instead I had to increase the amount by which it moves each time, so it's less smooth. It still looks pretty good, though.
For anyone else who's looking for this, I'm posting an excerpt of my code below, which slides the window up from the bottom right corner and then back down again a couple seconds later. I haven't made it into an SSCE, since that's above.
Thanks again!
final JWindow savedWindow = new JWindow();
JLabel savedLabel = new JLabel("File saved");
savedLabel.setFont(saveStateLabel.getFont().deriveFont(Font.BOLD));
String fileName = currentAuthoredFile.getAbsolutePath();
                                   // .... bunch of layout omitted
savedWindow.add(savedPanel);
savedWindow.pack();
final int desiredHeight = savedWindow.getHeight();
savedWindow.getContentPane().setLayout(null);
savedWindow.setSize(savedWindow.getWidth(), 0);
bottomCorner = new Point(mainFrame.getLocationOnScreen().x + mainFrame.getWidth(),
     mainFrame.getLocationOnScreen().y + mainFrame.getHeight());
savedWindow.setLocation(bottomCorner.x - savedWindow.getWidth(), bottomCorner.y);
savedWindow.setVisible(true);
javax.swing.Timer timer = new javax.swing.Timer(0, new ActionListener() {
    public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
        int newHeight = Math.min(savedWindow.getHeight()+6, desiredHeight);
        savedWindow.setSize(savedWindow.getWidth(),newHeight);
        savedWindow.setLocation(bottomCorner.x - savedWindow.getWidth(), bottomCorner.y-savedWindow.getHeight());
        savedPanel.repaint();
        if(newHeight >= desiredHeight) {
            ((javax.swing.Timer) e.getSource()).stop();
            //restore original layout
            savedWindow.getContentPane().setLayout(new BorderLayout());
            savedWindow.validate();
timer.start();
javax.swing.Timer timer2 = new javax.swing.Timer(0, new ActionListener() {
    public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
        int newHeight = Math.max(savedWindow.getHeight()-6, 0);
        savedWindow.setSize(savedWindow.getWidth(),newHeight);
        savedWindow.setLocation(bottomCorner.x - savedWindow.getWidth(), bottomCorner.y-savedWindow.getHeight());
        savedPanel.repaint();
        if(newHeight <= 0) {
            ((javax.swing.Timer) e.getSource()).stop();
            savedWindow.dispose();
timer2.setInitialDelay(2500);
timer2.start();