CPSC 120 Lab 12
Graphical User Interfaces
Lab Objectives
- Explore how GUIs can be used for user interaction.
- Gain experience with creating windows with panels.
- Experience using buttons and text fields.
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As usual, create a lab12 subdirectory for today's lab, open up
Mozilla Firefox and
the Web version of this handout, and open Eclipse.
Vote Counter - Using Buttons
The files VoteCounter.java
and VoteCounterPanel.java contain
a slightly modified version of the PushCounter program in
Listings 6.1 & 6.2 of the text (pages 240-242).
VoteCounterPanel.java is the same as in pre-lab.
Recall that the program counts the
number of times the button is pushed; it assumes ("pretends")
each push is a vote for Blue.
- Save the files to your directory, then compile the program
and run it to see how it works. Resize the
window to see the effect on the components.
- In a terminal window use the ls command to see the files
you have. In addition to the java source code files you should
see 3 bytecode files: VoteCounter.class, VoteCounterPanel.class,
and VoteCounterPanel$VoteButtonListener.class. The latter is the
bytecode for the VoteButtonListener class that is nested inside
the VoteCounterPanel class.
- Modify the program so that there are two candidates to vote for --
Blue and Red. To do this you need to do the following (most of this
you did on paper in pre-lab):
- Add instance variables for Red -- a vote counter,
a button, and a label. Initialize these variables in the
constructor for the panel.
- Add the button and label for Red to the panel.
- Add the VoteButtonListener object voteListener to the
button using the addActionListener method.
- Modify the actionPerformed method in the
VoteButtonListener class so it checks to see which button
generated the event (that is, which button was pushed)
and then updates the appropriate counter and displays the
results.
To do this you need to use the getSource method
for event objects. The event object is passed as a parameter
to the actionPerformed method (the formal parameter name
of the ActionEvent object is event).
The getSource method returns
a reference to the component that generated the event so
you can compare it to your components as in the example on
page 247 (explanation beginning on 245).
- Compile and run the program.
- Adding Some Color Modify the panel so that its
color is blue if the Blue button is ahead in the number of "votes"
and red if Red is ahead and magenta if it is a tie. Do the following:
- In actionPerformed, after the count has been updated and
displayed,
add a statement to set the background
color of the panel based on who is ahead. All Java components have
a method:
void setBackground (Color color)
that changes thebackground color
- Also, change the color of the labels so they clearly show
up -- use different colors to go with each background (you can
choose the colors).
Components have a setForeground method that is analogous to the
setBackground method. The setForeground method changes the
color of the text in labels and in buttons.
- Compile and test your program. Be sure your colors look good and
that the labels are visible. If you wish you can also change the
foreground and/or background colors of the buttons.
Using TextFields - Computing Body Mass Index
The files Fahrenheit.java and
FahrenheitPanel.java contain
the example program in Listings 6.5 & 6.6 of the text (pages 249 - 251).
The program converts temperatures in Fahrenheit to the Celsius
equivalent. The user enters a temperature in the text field and when
ENTER is pressed the Celsius equivalent is computed and displayed.
Pressing ENTER on a text field generates an action event so
the program must implement the ActionListener interface. Do the
following:
- Save the program files to your directory, compile the program and run
it to see how it works.
- Study the code in FahrenheitPanel.java noting the following:
- The actionPerformed method uses the getText method
to get the information out of the text field. That information is
returned as a String.
- The string from the text field must be converted to a number
(in this case an int) for calculations. The parseInt method
in the Integer class does this.
- The toString method in the Integer class is used to convert
the Celsius temperature back to a String. An alternate way to do this
would be "" + celsiusTemp.
In this exercise you will write a similar program to compute a
person's Body Mass Index.
Body Mass Index (BMI) is a measure of weight that takes height into account.
Generally, a BMI above 25 is considered high, that is, likely to indicate
that an individual is overweight. BMI is calculated as follows for both
men and women:
(703 * weight in pounds) / (height in inches)2
-
File BMI.java contains the main program
that creates the frame for the GUI panel and adds the panel to the
content pane of the frame. The file BMIPanel.java
contains a skeleton for the GUI to
calculate BMI. Since there are two input values needed (the height and
weight) this program will not respond to the user pressing ENTER on a
text field.
Instead, we will put a button on the panel for the user to press
to trigger the calculation.
So, the user enters his or her height and weight and presses a
"Calculate BMI" button; the program then displays
the user's BMI. Much of the framework has been done for you, but you will need
to fill in code.
Do the following (follow the instructions and the comments in the program):
In the constructor for the panel you need to do the following (put
your code for each immediately after the corresponding comment in the
code):
- JLabels have already been created to identify the height and weight
textfields. You need to create (instantiate) the
JLabels for the output, and to hold the
actual BMI. (NOTE: You need to use the variables that have already
been declared.)
- Create JTextFields to hold the person's height in inches and weight in pounds.
- Create an appropriately labeled JButton for the user to press to calculate the BMI.
- Create a BMIListener and make it listen for the button to be pressed.
Note that the listener is added to the button, not
the textfields, so the BMI is computed only when the button is pressed,
not when the
user presses Enter on the textfields.
- Add the height label and textfield to the panel.
Note that the components will appear on the panel
in the order
in which you add them (left to right, top to bottom).
- Add the weight label and textfield to the panel.
- Add the button to the panel.
- Add the label identifying the result and the label holding the result to
the panel.
In the actionPerformed method of BMIListener:
- Get the text from the height and weight textfields and store
the results in the String variables provided.
- Use Integer.parseInt to convert the text to integer values, and store
them in the int values provided.
- Calculate the BMI from the height and weight values (use double
precision arithmetic).
- Use the Math.round method of the Math class to round the calculated
BMI. The round method takes one parameter - the number you want to round.
- Use Double.toString to convert the BMI to a string, and store the string in
the result label.
Compile the BMI program and run it.
- Add code to the BMIPanel
to let the user have some idea of what
their BMI means. You need to either modify the JLabel that displays
the BMI or add a new JLabel. Your program should include a message based
on the following: a BMI less than 19 indicates the person is underweight,
a BMI between 19 and 25 (inclusive) means a healthy weight, a BMI between
26 and 30 (inclusive) indicates the person is overweight, and a BMI over
30 indicates the person is very overweight. NOTE: Use an if to
choose the appropriate message.
A GUI-based ATM Machine
In this exercise you will create a simple
GUI-based ATM machine using the Account class from lab 11.
You will need the following files:
Account.java, the bank account class;
ATM.java, the main program for the GUI;
ATMPanel.java, the GUI panel.
Open ATMPanel.java in Eclipse and do the following:
- Create the components and listeners as instructed by the
comments in the program. Be sure to add the components to the panel
in the order specified in the comments. (Note: Don't add code to
actionPerformed yet - we'll get the GUI looking ok first.)
- Compile and run the program to see what it looks like. Not
too pretty! This is what the default flow layout looks like.
- There are many ways to make things look better. The one we will
use is nested panels in the default Layout. The stoplight example
we did in class uses this approach. To see what that GUI looks
like download the files Stoplight.java
which contains the program for the main frame and
StoplightPanel.java which contains
the panel (you should have the printout of that code from class).
Run Stoplight.java and compare what you see to the code in
StoplightPanel.java. See what happens when the buttons are clicked
(not very interesting, sorry!!!).
For the ATM GUI we will
divide the panel into 4 subpanels (and specify the size of each), then
add those to the main panel (whose size needs to be specified). Do this
as follows:
- Declare and instantiate a JPanel named welcomePanel. Set its
size (the width should be the constant WIDTH - you choose an appropriate
height). Change the statement that adds the welcome label to the main panel
to instead add the label to the welcome panel.
- Declare and instantiate a JPanel named amtPanel. Set its
size and change the statements that add the label and text field to
the main panel so they now add them to the amount panel.
- Similarly declare and instantiate a JPanel, appropriately sized,
containing the label with "deposit or withdraw" instructions and the two
buttons. As above add these components to your new panel instead of
to the main panel.
- Finally declare and instantiate a JPanel, appropriately sized,
containing the balance label. Add the label to this panel.
- Now add the four subpanels to the main panel.
- Set the size of the main panel using the constants WIDTH and
HEIGHT.
- Compile and run the program to see how it looks. Make necessary
modifications, including setting colors for the panels, to make things
look good.
- Implement the actionPerformed method in the ChoiceListener
class. The method should get the amount from the text field and
convert it to a double using the parseDouble method (a static
method) in the Double class. Then the method needs to see
which button was clicked
and, using methods from the Account class, perform the appropriate
action (deposit or withdraw). Finally use the setText method to
update the balance label (remember to use the formatter
object fmt to
format the new balance).
HAND IN
Hand in printouts for VoteCounterPanel.java, BMIPanel.java,
and ATMPanel.java.
Tar your directory and email the tar file to your instructor with a
subject of cpsc120 lab12