[SOLVED] Best way to overlap Images?

Hello, I'm writting a program that involves playing cards.
With more players and more cards delt the card dispaly area begins to grow too large so I want to have each new card delt to overlap that persons previous card only slightly to the right so you can see both.
Right now I just have a panel for each palyers area and when they draw a card it simply adds the Card image as a JLabel.

Anyone have advice on the best way to go about this?
Thank You

How about using a imageicons on jlabels as you're doing, and place them in a JLayeredPane?

advice on the best way to go about this
Depends on how you want to design things.
Two other options are drawing the cards in a graphic component and using zOrder to overlap components.
Here's a quick example of each:

Code:

---

import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.image.BufferedImage;
import java.io.*;
import javax.swing.*;

public class StackingCards {
    private JPanel getContent(BufferedImage[] images) {
        JPanel panel = new JPanel(new GridBagLayout());
        GridBagConstraints gbc = new GridBagConstraints();
        gbc.weightx = 1.0;
        gbc.fill = GridBagConstraints.BOTH;
        gbc.gridwidth = GridBagConstraints.REMAINDER;
        panel.add(new GraphicComponent(images), gbc);
        panel.add(getZOrderComponent(images), gbc);
        return panel;
    }

    private JPanel getZOrderComponent(BufferedImage[] images) {
        JPanel panel = new JPanel(null);
        Dimension d = new Dimension(300,100);
        panel.setPreferredSize(d);
        int iw = images[0].getWidth();
        int ih = images[0].getHeight();
        int overlap = iw/4;
        int x0 = (d.width - iw - (images.length-1)*overlap)/2;
        int y = (d.height - ih)/2;
        for(int i = 0; i < images.length; i++) {
            JLabel label = new JLabel(new ImageIcon(images[i]));
            panel.add(label);
            int x = x0 + i*overlap;
            label.setBounds(x, y, iw, ih);
            panel.setComponentZOrder(label, 0);
        }
        Component[] c = panel.getComponents();
        for(int i = 0; i < c.length; i++) {
            System.out.printf("c[%d] zOrder = %d%n",
                              i, panel.getComponentZOrder(c[i]));
        }
        return panel;
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
        String prefix = "images/geek/geek";
        String[] ids = {
            "-----", "-c---", "--g--", "---h-", "----t"
        };
        String ext = ".gif";
        BufferedImage[] images = new BufferedImage[ids.length];
        for(int i = 0; i < images.length; i++) {
            String path = prefix + ids[i] + ext;
            images[i] = javax.imageio.ImageIO.read(new File(path));
        }
        StackingCards test = new StackingCards();
        JFrame f = new JFrame();
        f.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        f.add(test.getContent(images));
        f.pack();
        f.setVisible(true);
    }
}

class GraphicComponent extends JPanel {
    BufferedImage[] images;

    public GraphicComponent(BufferedImage[] images) {
        this.images = images;
    }

    protected void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
        super.paintComponent(g);
        int w = getWidth();
        int h = getHeight();
        int iw = images[0].getWidth();
        int ih = images[0].getHeight();
        int overlap = iw/4;
        int x0 = (w - iw - (images.length-1)*overlap)/2;
        int y = (h - ih)/2;
        for(int i = 0; i < images.length; i++) {
            int x = x0 + i*overlap;
            g.drawImage(images[i], x, y, this);
        }
    }

    public Dimension getPreferredSize() {
        return new Dimension(300,100);
    }
}

---

geek images

Ahh thank you! This is a side project I'm working on at work, so I haven't had time to try this out but it looks great!