Working With Color Chooser in Swing

Introduction

In this article we describe how we can work with the color chooser. The color chooser dialog box is a very general thing for GUI applications. Java provides a JColorChooser class with the Swing package. Use the JColorChooser class to enable users to choose from a palette of colors. A color chooser is a component that you can place anywhere within your GUI program. The JColorChooser API also makes it easy to bring up a dialog (modal or not) that contains a color chooser.

For adding a color chooser to your application you have to follow some steps.

Step 1 : Import the necessary package.

import javax.swing.JDialog;

import javax.swing.JFrame;

import javax.swing.JPanel;

import javax.swing.JButton;

import javax.swing.JTextArea;

import java.awt.EventQueue;

import java.awt.BorderLayout;

import java.awt.Color;

import java.awt.GridLayout;

import java.awt.event.ActionListener;

import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;

import javax.swing.JColorChooser;

Step 2 : Create a class and define the component variables.

public class ColorChooserDemo

{

JFrame myFrame;

JTextArea ta;

JPanel pnl;

Step 3 : Create a GUI within the constructor.

public ColorChooserDemo()

{

myFrame = new JFrame();

// for handle the frame close operation

myFrame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);

//set the title of frame

myFrame.setTitle("Color choosher Dialog box Example");

//Set the size

myFrame.setSize(500,300);

myFrame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);

myFrame.setLayout(new BorderLayout());

// creating TextArea

ta = new JTextArea("Your TextArea:");

ta.setVisible(true);

//Add text Area in frame

myFrame.add(ta, BorderLayout.NORTH);

// creating panel

pnl = new JPanel();

//pass the object of grid layout

pnl.setLayout(new GridLayout(1,2));

myFrame.add(pnl,BorderLayout.SOUTH);

//creating A button

JButton showButton = new JButton("Show ColorChooser box");

showButton.setActionCommand("Show ColorChooser box");

//Performing event handling

 

Step 4: Perform event handling.
 

showButton.addActionListener(new ActionListener()

{

public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent event)

{

Color selectedColor = JColorChooser.showDialog(myFrame, "Pick a Color", Color.GREEN);

if (selectedColor != null)

{

ta.append("\nThe selected color is make up of Red: "+ selectedColor.getRed() + " Blue: " + selectedColor.getBlue()+ " Green: " + selectedColor.getGreen());

}

}

});

pnl.add(showButton);

JButton createButton = new JButton("Create Color");

createButton.setActionCommand("Create Color");

createButton.addActionListener(new ActionListener()

{

@Override

public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent event)

{

final JColorChooser colorChooser = new JColorChooser();

JDialog dialog = JColorChooser.createDialog(myFrame, "Chane TextArea color", false, colorChooser, new ActionListener()

{

@Override

public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent event)

{

ta.append("\n Now my color is changed to "+ colorChooser.getColor());

ta.setBackground(colorChooser.getColor());

}

}

, new ActionListener()

{

@Override

public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent event)

{

ta.append("\nYou  clicked on cancel..");

}

});

dialog.setVisible(true);

}

});

pnl.add(createButton);

myFrame.setVisible(true);

}

Step 5: All the GUI-related components are in the constructor.

Complete code

import javax.swing.JDialog;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JTextArea;
import java.awt.EventQueue;
import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.GridLayout;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import javax.swing.JColorChooser;
public class ColorChooserDemo
{
JFrame myFrame;
JTextArea ta;
JPanel pnl;
public ColorChooserDemo()
{
myFrame = new JFrame();
myFrame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
myFrame.setTitle("Dialog Box Example");
myFrame.setSize(500,300);
myFrame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
myFrame.setLayout(new BorderLayout());
ta = new JTextArea("File ta:");
ta.setVisible(true);
myFrame.add(ta, BorderLayout.NORTH);
pnl = new JPanel();
pnl.setLayout(new GridLayout(1,2));
myFrame.add(pnl,BorderLayout.SOUTH);
JButton showButton = new JButton("Show ColorChooser box");
showButton.setActionCommand("Show ColorChooser box");
showButton.addActionListener(new ActionListener()
{
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent event)
{
Color selectedColor = JColorChooser.showDialog(myFrame, "Pick a Color", Color.GREEN);
if (selectedColor != null)
{
ta.append("\nThe selected color is make up of Red: "+ selectedColor.getRed() + " Blue: " + selectedColor.getBlue()+ " Green: " + selectedColor.getGreen());
}
}
});
pnl.add(showButton);
JButton createButton = new JButton("Create Color");
createButton.setActionCommand("Create Color");
createButton.addActionListener(new ActionListener()
{
@Override
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent event)
{
final JColorChooser colorChooser = new JColorChooser();
JDialog dialog = JColorChooser.createDialog(myFrame, "Chane TextArea color", false, colorChooser,
new ActionListener()
{
@Override
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent event)
{
ta.append("\n Now my color is changed to "+ colorChooser.getColor());
ta.setBackground(colorChooser.getColor());
}
}
, new ActionListener()
{
@Override
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent event)
{
ta.append("\nYou  clicked on cancel..");
}

});

dialog.setVisible(true);

}

});

pnl.add(createButton);

myFrame.setVisible(true);

}

public static void main(String[] args)

{

EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable()

{

@Override

public void run()

{

new ColorChooserDemo();        

}

});

}

}

Output

Cmd output:

Initial look (blank output):

After clicking on the show ColorChooser box, the following color chooser dialog box is opened.

After click on create color button and select HSB option of color chooser dialog box.

Now click on the ok button; your text area color has been changed.

Resources 

Working With a Radio Button in Swing

Working With JMenu in Swing

Understanding Launchers and Choosers in Windows Phone 7

Working With JTextArea in Swing

Different Types of Chooser and Launcher Tasks in Windows Phone 7