Creating a Container

You begin by opening the Template Chooser from the menu bar in the main window. The top-level container that you create will hold the other components (button and label) in your application. You will create the container using the JFrame component and place it in the colorswitch package. (A package is a group of related Java classes and interfaces.)

To create the container:

  1. Choose File New.

    The New From Template Chooser is displayed.

  2. In the Template Chooser, expand Swing Forms, and then select JFrame.

    A description of the JFrame component appears in the pane on the right.

  3. Click Next to go to the Target Location pane of the template chooser.

  4. Type ColorSwitch in the Name field.

  5. Click in the Package field and type colorswitch.

  6. Click Finish in the Template Chooser.

    A ColorSwitch object is added to the current directory displayed in the Filesystems pane of the Explorer window. Expand the node to see the nodes for the ColorSwitch class object and the top-level GUI container, ColorSwitch JFrame.

    In addition, the workspace automatically changes to GUI Editing and the Component Inspector, Form Editor, and Source Editor are displayed. The Component Inspector provides a visual representation of the components in your application and enables you to edit their properties. The Form Editor is the layout area in which you will create the ColorSwitch GUI. The Source Editor shows the Java source code for the JFrame component. You can type only in the white areas of the Source Editor.

Next:Choosing a Layout Manager
Back:Creating the ColorSwitch Application

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