Setting background images in JFrame

Question

Are any methods available to set an image as background in a JFrame?

Ariose

Answer 1

There is no built-in method, but there are several ways to do it. The most straightforward way that I can think of at the moment is:

1. Create a subclass of JComponent.
2. Override the paintComponent(Graphics g) method to paint the image that you want to display.
3. Set the content pane of the JFrame to be this subclass.

Some sample code:

class ImagePanel extends JComponent {
    private Image image;
    public ImagePanel(Image image) {
        this.image = image;
    }
    @Override
    protected void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
        super.paintComponent(g);
        g.drawImage(image, 0, 0, this);
    }
}

// elsewhere
BufferedImage myImage = ImageIO.read(...);
JFrame myJFrame = new JFrame("Image pane");
myJFrame.setContentPane(new ImagePanel(myImage));

Note that this code does not handle resizing the image to fit the JFrame, if that's what you wanted.

Carousal

You should use super.paintComponents() method to painComponent method. – Whoops

Answer 2

Try this :

import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;

import javax.imageio.ImageIO;
import javax.swing.ImageIcon;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;


public class Test {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        JFrame f = new JFrame();
        try {
            f.setContentPane(new JLabel(new ImageIcon(ImageIO.read(new File("test.jpg")))));
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
        f.pack();
        f.setVisible(true);
    }

}

By the way, this will result in the content pane not being a container. If you want to add things to it you have to subclass a JPanel and override the paintComponent method.

Cobb

Actually, JLabel (like all JComponents) extends Container. I wonder what happens if you add something to a label? – Carousal

actually nothing... i just tried it. you can add a JTextArea for instance but it doesn't draw. – Cobb

Nothing appears because the label has a null layout. Set the layout manager of the label and you can add components to it. Just be aware that the size of the component will still be determined by the size of the image, not the components added to the label. – Finkelstein

Answer 3

You can use the Background Panel class. It does the custom painting as explained above but gives you options to display the image scaled, tiled or normal size. It also explains how you can use a JLabel with an image as the content pane for the frame.

Finkelstein

Answer 4

import javax.swing.*;

import java.awt.*;

import java.awt.event.*;

class BackgroundImageJFrame extends JFrame
{

    JButton b1;
    JLabel l1;

    public BackgroundImageJFrame() {

        setSize(400,400);
        setVisible(true);

        setLayout(new BorderLayout());

        JLabel background=new JLabel(new ImageIcon("C:\\Users\\Computer\\Downloads\\colorful_design.png"));

        add(background);

        background.setLayout(new FlowLayout());

        l1=new JLabel("Here is a button");
        b1=new JButton("I am a button");

        background.add(l1);
        background.add(b1);
    }

    public static void main(String args[]) 
    {
        new BackgroundImageJFrame();
    }
}

check out the below link

http://java-demos.blogspot.in/2012/09/setting-background-image-in-jframe.html

Rajiv