There are a number of ways you might achieve this...for example, you could use custom painting to paint the individual images yourself. Each time the mouse is pressed/dragged, you would need to calculate which image was been dragged.
A slightly simpler solution might be to use a JLayeredPane and continue using JLabels to render the images, you could then use a MouseListener and MouseMoitionListener to detect when a label was pressed and/or dragged and update it's position accordingly...
See How to Write a Mouse Listener and How to Use Layered Panes for more details.
![Drag]()
import java.awt.Component;
import java.awt.Dimension;
import java.awt.EventQueue;
import java.awt.Point;
import java.awt.event.MouseAdapter;
import java.awt.event.MouseEvent;
import java.awt.image.BufferedImage;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileFilter;
import java.io.IOException;
import javax.imageio.ImageIO;
import javax.swing.ImageIcon;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JLayeredPane;
import javax.swing.UIManager;
import javax.swing.UnsupportedLookAndFeelException;
public class TestDrag {
public static void main(String[] args) {
new TestDrag();
}
public TestDrag() {
EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
@Override
public void run() {
try {
UIManager.setLookAndFeel(UIManager.getSystemLookAndFeelClassName());
} catch (ClassNotFoundException | InstantiationException | IllegalAccessException | UnsupportedLookAndFeelException ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
JFrame frame = new JFrame("Testing");
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
frame.add(new TestPane());
frame.pack();
frame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
frame.setVisible(true);
}
});
}
public class TestPane extends JLayeredPane {
public TestPane() {
File[] images = new File("C:\\hold\\thumbnails").listFiles(new FileFilter() {
@Override
public boolean accept(File pathname) {
String name = pathname.getName().toLowerCase();
return name.endsWith(".png") ||
name.endsWith(".jpg") ||
name.endsWith(".bmp") ||
name.endsWith(".gif");
}
});
int x = 0;
int y = 0;
for (File imgFile : images) {
try {
BufferedImage img = ImageIO.read(imgFile);
JLabel label = new JLabel(new ImageIcon(img));
label.setSize(label.getPreferredSize());
label.setLocation(x, y);
MouseHandler mh = new MouseHandler();
label.addMouseListener(mh);
label.addMouseMotionListener(mh);
add(label);
x += 20;
y += 20;
} catch (IOException exp) {
exp.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
@Override
public Dimension getPreferredSize() {
return new Dimension(800, 800);
}
public class MouseHandler extends MouseAdapter {
private Point offset;
@Override
public void mousePressed(MouseEvent e) {
JLabel label = (JLabel) e.getComponent();
moveToFront(label);
offset = e.getPoint();
}
@Override
public void mouseDragged(MouseEvent e) {
int x = e.getPoint().x - offset.x;
int y = e.getPoint().y - offset.y;
Component component = e.getComponent();
Point location = component.getLocation();
location.x += x;
location.y += y;
component.setLocation(location);
}
}
}
}
