Java swing application, close one window and open another when button is clicked

Question

I have a netbeans Java application that should display a JFrame (class StartUpWindow extends JFrame) with some options when the application is launched, then the user clicks a button and that JFrame should be closed and a new one (class MainWindow) should be opened.

So how do I do this correctly. I obviously set a click handler on the button in StartupWindow but what do I put in this handler so that I can close the StartUpWindow and open the MainWindow? It seems that threading comes into this too as every window seems to have their own thread...or are threading issues automatically handled by JFrames themselves...

Answer 1

Here is an example:

StartupWindow.java

import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.SwingUtilities;


public class StartupWindow extends JFrame implements ActionListener
{
    private JButton btn;

    public StartupWindow()
    {
        super("Simple GUI");
        setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);

        btn = new JButton("Open the other JFrame!");
        btn.addActionListener(this);
        btn.setActionCommand("Open");
        add(btn);
        pack();

    }

    @Override
    public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)
    {
        String cmd = e.getActionCommand();

        if(cmd.equals("Open"))
        {
            dispose();
            new AnotherJFrame();
        }
    }

    public static void main(String[] args)
    {
        SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable(){

            @Override
            public void run()
            {
                new StartupWindow().setVisible(true);
            }

        });
    }
}

AnotherJFrame.java

import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;

public class AnotherJFrame extends JFrame
{
    public AnotherJFrame()
    {
        super("Another GUI");
        setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);

        add(new JLabel("Empty JFrame"));
        pack();
        setVisible(true);
    }
}

Answer 2

This is obviously the scenario where you should be using CardLayout. Here instead of opening two JFrame, what you can do is simply change the JPanels using CardLayout.

And the code that is responsible for creating and displaying your GUI should be inside the SwingUtilities.invokeLater(...); method for it to be Thread Safe. For More Info you have to read about Concurrency in Swing.

But if you want to stick to your approach, here is a Sample Code for your Help.

import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;

import javax.swing.*;

public class TwoFrames
{
    private JFrame frame1, frame2;
    private ActionListener action;
    private JButton showButton, hideButton;

    public void createAndDisplayGUI()
    {
        frame1 = new JFrame("FRAME 1");
        frame1.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);      
        frame1.setLocationByPlatform(true);

        JPanel contentPane1 = new JPanel();
        contentPane1.setBackground(Color.BLUE);

        showButton = new JButton("OPEN FRAME 2");
        hideButton = new JButton("HIDE FRAME 2");

        action  = new ActionListener()
        {
            public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent ae)
            {
                JButton button = (JButton) ae.getSource();

                /*
                 * If this button is clicked, we will create a new JFrame,
                 * and hide the previous one.
                 */
                if (button == showButton)
                {
                    frame2 = new JFrame("FRAME 2");
                    frame2.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);      
                    frame2.setLocationByPlatform(true);

                    JPanel contentPane2 = new JPanel();
                    contentPane2.setBackground(Color.DARK_GRAY);

                    contentPane2.add(hideButton);
                    frame2.getContentPane().add(contentPane2);
                    frame2.setSize(300, 300);
                    frame2.setVisible(true);
                    frame1.setVisible(false);
                }
                /*
                 * Here we will dispose the previous frame, 
                 * show the previous JFrame.
                 */
                else if (button == hideButton)
                {
                    frame1.setVisible(true);
                    frame2.setVisible(false);
                    frame2.dispose();
                }
            }
        };

        showButton.addActionListener(action);
        hideButton.addActionListener(action);

        contentPane1.add(showButton);

        frame1.getContentPane().add(contentPane1);
        frame1.setSize(300, 300);
        frame1.setVisible(true);
    }
    public static void main(String... args)
    {
        /*
         * Here we are Scheduling a JOB for Event Dispatcher
         * Thread. The code which is responsible for creating
         * and displaying our GUI or call to the method which 
         * is responsible for creating and displaying your GUI
         * goes into this SwingUtilities.invokeLater(...) thingy.
         */
        SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable()
        {
            public void run()
            {
                new TwoFrames().createAndDisplayGUI();
            }
        });
    }
}

And the output will be :

and