Greetings,

I want to immobilize a JInternalFrame (who'd tought it? ;-) At the moment
I do it like this:

// in a class extending JInternalFrame itself:
this.addComponentListener(new ComponentAdapter() {
			
   public void componentMoved(ComponentEvent ce) {
			
      if (locked) {
         if (point == null) point= getLocation();
         setLocation(point);
      }
   }
});

'point' and 'locked' are just private member variables. This works but it
looks funny, i.e. it's as if the JInternalFrame is fighting back: it moves a
bit but jumps back to its original location when you don't pay attention for
a split second.

It makes me giggle but my customers find it sloppy. They are used to
these neat little pins you can use to keep a frame pinned to where it is
at that moment. Is there anything like that possible using Swing? Of
course I scrutinized the API docs but I could't find anything I could use.
I don't care about a visible pin, if only that JInternalFrame would stand
still completely.

Ideas anyone? Thanks in advance and

kind regards,

Jos

 

 

This posting shows one way:

http://forum.java.sun.com/thread.jspa?forumID=57&threadID=652179

 

 

Thank you very much for that. That's what I call 'component surgery' ;-)
I've implemented a little 'toggle' method that removes or reinstalls those
listeners according to a simple boolean flag. As far as I can see now
everything works fine. Thank you very much again and

kind regards,

Jos

 

 

The latest 3.1dev drop of Substance look-and-feel allows you to set the SubstanceLookAndFeel.PERMANENTLY_PINNED client property on the JInternalFrame. If you set it to Boolean.TRUE, the relevant frame would be "pinned" - you can't move it or resize it.

In general, it's not a good idea to remove the listeners not installed by you, since you don't know what functionality you're removing - this can cause unexpected behaviour at least or exceptions / frame freezing in worse cases.

 

 

Yes, but after minutes worth of testing I didn't see any problems :-)

While looking at the source code of the installed MouseMotionListener to see exactly what it did, I came up with a "better" (?) approach:

import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import javax.swing.*;
import javax.swing.event.*;
import javax.swing.plaf.basic.*;
 
public class InternalFrameUnMovable2 extends JFrame
{
	JDesktopPane desktop;
 
	public InternalFrameUnMovable2()
	{
		desktop = new JDesktopPane();
		desktop.setDesktopManager( new NoDragDesktopManager() );
		getContentPane().add( desktop );
 
		desktop.add( createInternalFrame(1, Color.RED) );
		desktop.add( createInternalFrame(2, Color.GREEN) );
		desktop.add( createInternalFrame(3, Color.BLUE) );
	}
 
	private JInternalFrame createInternalFrame(int number, Color background)
	{
		JInternalFrame internal =
			new JInternalFrame( "Frame" + number, true, true, true, true );
		internal.setBackground( background );
		internal.setVisible( true );
		int location = 50 * number;
		internal.setBounds(location, location, 300, 300);
		return internal;
	}
 
	public static void main(String args[])
	{
		InternalFrameUnMovable2 frame = new InternalFrameUnMovable2();
		frame.setDefaultCloseOperation( EXIT_ON_CLOSE );
		frame.setSize(600, 600);
		frame.setLocationRelativeTo( null );
		frame.setVisible(true);
 
		//  Activate first internal frame
 
		try
		{
			JInternalFrame[] frames = frame.desktop.getAllFrames();
			frames[0].setSelected(true);
		}
		catch (java.beans.PropertyVetoException e) {}
 
		//  Make first internal frame unmovable
 
		JInternalFrame[] frames = frame.desktop.getAllFrames();
		JInternalFrame f = frames[0];
		f.putClientProperty("dragMode", "fixed");
	}
 
	class NoDragDesktopManager extends DefaultDesktopManager
	{
		public void beginDraggingFrame(JComponent f)
		{
			if (!"fixed".equals(f.getClientProperty("dragMode")))
				super.beginDraggingFrame(f);
		}
 
		public void dragFrame(JComponent f, int newX, int newY)
		{
			if (!"fixed".equals(f.getClientProperty("dragMode")))
				super.dragFrame(f, newX, newY);
		}
 
		public void endDraggingFrame(JComponent f)
		{
			if (!"fixed".equals(f.getClientProperty("dragMode")))
				super.endDraggingFrame(f);
		}
	}
}

 

 

And now you single-handedly obliterate the installed desktop managers under Synth, Motif and Windows LAFs...

 

 

As opposed to forcing everyone to use the Substance LAF?

Its an option. The user can decide if it meets the requirement or not.

 

 

Very nice solution.

However Jos, keep in mind that whatever solution is used, the frame would also have to be resizable = false, or the user could work around it by just dragging the edges until the frame was back to it's original shape but in a different location.

 

 

"Forcing" is a strong word here. I'm just following the often-voiced requests and adding them to Substance. Just pointing out that the solution with installing a custom desktop manager is not cross-LAF and may interfere with native fidelity, as well as the solution with removing mouse listeners that may result in unpredictable behavior. Not to mention a possible ClassCastException if the specific InternalFrameUI implementation doesn't extend BasicInternalFrameUI (since it doesn't have to).

By the way - the solution provided by Substance takes care of both moving and resizing.

 

 

I agree; I ended up with simple MouseMotionListeners that wrap the
original ones registered at the NORTH pane. Those wrappers can be
enabled and disabled at will. The downside is that I have to re-wrap
those listeners when the LAF changes ...


Yep, I completely 'freeze' the frame, i.e. disable the MouseMotionListeners
and make the JInternalFrame non-resizable, non-maximizable and non-
iconifiable. I do have to check out the 'Substance' UI (I never heard of it
before, but then again, I'm no GUI wizard ;-)

Nice informative thread, thanks to all repliers for that.

kind regards,

Jos