I Need Some Project Improvment Ideas

[Dark]

So just as a fun little side project to help instill what I've learned in the past few chapters of my book I am making a notepad clone.

I don't think its really finished yet, but it has very similar functionality to notepad. Right now I have the following menus and their sub trees.

+File
    -New
    -Save
    -Save As
    -Open

+Font Size
    -5
    -6
    -7
    -8
    -9
    -10
    -12
    -14
    -16
    -18
    -20
    -22
    -24

+Font Type
    -Sans Serif
    -Serif
    -Monospaced
    -Arial
    -Calibri
    -Courier New

+Font Style
    -Plain
    -Bold
    -Italic

Does anyone have any ideas on what I could add that would make it better?

Right now I'm trying to make it resizeable, and from what I can find on the internet making a JTextArea resizeable on the window is rather long and tedious. If anyone has any ideas on how to accomplish this easier than a GridBagLayout I would be much obliged.

[sunde887]

You can switch from a jtextarea to a jtextpane, this will allow functionality like a text editor, however; it gets quite a bit more difficult.

As to the resizing issue, what happens if you use a borderlayout? What components do you have besides the text area? The menu bar should stick to the top regardless if you use setJMenuBar.

[KevinWorkman]

Right now I'm trying to make it resizeable, and from what I can find on the internet making a JTextArea resizeable on the window is rather long and tedious. If anyone has any ideas on how to accomplish this easier than a GridBagLayout I would be much obliged.

What's long and tedious about it? I just threw together an example (put a JTextArea inside a JScrollPane in a JFrame) and it seems to work okay. What am I missing?

[Dark]

@Sunde does a JTextPane allow individual formatting? Like bolding a selection instead of the whole thing?

@KevinWorkman I want the JTextArea to be the same size as the window at all times. Right now I only have a JTextArea and a MenuBar, but since JTextArea's use columns and rows instead of pixels I have no idea on how to make a simple resizing method. The only one I could find on Google was a GridBoxLayout.

[DarrylBurke]

does a JTextPane allow individual formatting? Like bolding a selection instead of the whole thing?

Have you read the API? Have you gone through the tutorial?

I want the JTextArea to be the same size as the window at all times. Right now I only have a JTextArea and a MenuBar, but since JTextArea's use columns and rows instead of pixels I have no idea on how to make a simple resizing method. The only one I could find on Google was a GridBoxLayout.

Don't try to make a 'simple resizing method' just use an appropriate layout manager.

db

[Dark]

I haven't read anything about the JTextPane, the first time I heard of it is when Sunde mentioned it. Thus my question, however I will have to look more into it.

Hmm, I added my JTextArea to a JPanel. Are you suggesting that if I use a BorderLayout instead of a FlowLayout it will simply adjust itself whenever I resize my window? Hmm, I didn't think about that. Off to try it out.

EDIT: Thank you very much for the suggestion, I didn't even think about that. Using a BorderLayout would allow me to create a JTextArea without defining a specific set of columns and rows too. I can't believe I forgot about this, seeing as I learned about it right before IO streams and Buffers.