HTML on Swing components
Any component that can take text can also take HTML text, which it will reformat according to HTML rules. This means you can very easily add fancy text to a Swing component. For example:
//: c14:HTMLButton.java
// Putting HTML text on Swing components.
// <applet code=HTMLButton width=250 height=500></applet>
import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.awt.*;
import com.bruceeckel.swing.*;
public class HTMLButton extends JApplet {
private JButton b = new JButton(
"<html><b><font size=+2>" +
"<center>Hello!<br><i>Press me now!");
public void init() {
b.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
getContentPane().add(new JLabel("<html>" +
"<i><font size=+4>Kapow!"));
// Force a re-layout to include the new label:
validate();
}
});
Container cp = getContentPane();
cp.setLayout(new FlowLayout());
cp.add(b);
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
Console.run(new HTMLButton(), 200, 500);
}
} ///:~
You must start the text with “<html>,” and then you can use normal HTML tags. Note that you are not forced to include the normal closing tags.
The ActionListener adds a new JLabel to the form, which also contains HTML text. However, this label is not added during init( ), so you must call the container’s validate( ) method in order to force a re-layout of the components (and thus the display of the new label).
You can also use HTML text for JTabbedPane, JMenuItem, JToolTip, JradioButton, and JCheckBox.
