Adding JPEG to JButton Child

[rsieberg]

Hello,

I am new to Swing and trying to improve my java by writing a chess program. I coded in the chess logic into an array of integers representing piece types. I then created a Swing GUI JFrame with an 8x8 grid layout of a class that extends JButton that handles mouse events. Currently, this grid is interactive and uses setText to display the piece type on the appropriate JButton child. I would like to display JPEG image files of chess piecess instead of setting text with integer valuesl; however, my code will not work. My images files are in the src directory so I just reference "whitePawn.jpeg". I would really appreciate help in getting this to run.

Below are the relavent code snippets (here I intend for all of the pieces to display as White Pawns):

	public GUI(Board b)
	{
		repaint(b);
	}

	public void repaint(Board b)
	{
		Square[][] grid= new Square[8][8];
		buttonBar.setLayout( new GridLayout(8,8) );
		board = b;
			
		for(int i=0;i<8;i++)
			for(int j=0;j<8;j++)
			{
				if(board.occupancy[i][j] == -1)
				{
					grid[i][j] = new Square(-1,i,j); 
					grid[i][j].addMouseListener(new ButtonListener(i,j));
					
				}
				else
				{
					switch(board.pieces.get(board.occupancy[i][j]).typeNumber)
					{
						case 1: grid[i][j] = new Square(1,i,j); grid[i][j].addMouseListener(new ButtonListener(i,j)); break;
						case 2: grid[i][j] = new Square(2,i,j); grid[i][j].addMouseListener(new ButtonListener(i,j));	break;
						case 3: grid[i][j] = new Square(3,i,j); grid[i][j].addMouseListener(new ButtonListener(i,j)); break;
						case 4: grid[i][j] = new Square(4,i,j); grid[i][j].addMouseListener(new ButtonListener(i,j));	break;
						case 5: grid[i][j] = new Square(5,i,j); grid[i][j].addMouseListener(new ButtonListener(i,j));	break;
						case 6: grid[i][j] = new Square(6,i,j); grid[i][j].addMouseListener(new ButtonListener(i,j));	break;
					}
				}              
				if((i+j)%2==1)
					grid[i][j].setBackground(Color.BLACK);
				else
					grid[i][j].setBackground(Color.WHITE);
				buttonBar.add(grid[i][j]);
			}

		buttonBar.setSize(600,550);
		buttonBar.setVisible(true);
	
	}

import javax.swing.*;
public class Square extends JButton
{
	ImageIcon img1;
	
	int type, rank, file;
	Square(int a, int b, int c)
	{
		img1 = new ImageIcon("whitePawn.jpeg");
		type = a;
		rank = b;
		file = c;
		this.setIcon(img1);
	}
	
	public void repaint()
	{
		setText(Integer.toString(type));
		this.setIcon(img1);
	}
}

[Fubarable]

Don't override repaint() unless you really really need to do this and know exactly what you are doing. Instead why not simply call the setIcon(...) method of your buttons when you need to change an image?


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Best of luck and welcome to the java-forums!!!

[rsieberg]

Thank you for your help and quick response Fubarable, but I still cannot seem to get it to work. I removed all of the repaint methods and still have the interactive GUI board working with integers for set string.

But if I replace

 someButton.setText();

with

someButton.setIcon(new ImageIcon("whitePawn.jpeg"));

I cannot produce an image on my JButton child class. I thought it might be the placement of my jpeg files. I have them in my src folder along with the class files.

[Fubarable]

Currently your program is looking in the user directory to try to find the image files. To see where this is, place this line in your code:

System.out.println(System.getProperty("user.dir"));

Are you using packages? If not, you should be. If your images are with the class files, then you can probably get them as resources. I'd give my classes responsible for setting the icons some private ImageIcon variables for each chess piece, that way you don't have to re-load the images each time an image is needed:

e.g.,

class ChessGui  {
   private ImageIcon whitePawnIcon;
   private ImageIcon whiteBishopIcon;
   private ImageIcon whiteKnightIcon;
   // ... etc ...

and then load the icons in the class's constructor, again using resources,

   public ChessGui () {
      try {
         BufferedImage whitePawnImage = ImageIO.read(getClass().getResourceAsStream("whitePawn.jpg"));
         whitePawnIcon = new ImageIcon(whitePawnImage);
         BufferedImage whiteBishopImage = ImageIO.read(getClass().getResourceAsStream("whiteBishop.jpg"));
         whiteBishopIcon = new ImageIcon(whiteBishopImage);
         BufferedImage whiteKnightImage = ImageIO.read(getClass().getResourceAsStream("whiteKnight.jpg"));
         whiteKnightIcon = new ImageIcon(whiteKnightImage);
         //... etc ...
      } catch (IOException e1) {
         e1.printStackTrace();
      }