How to disable all components in a JPanel

Question

In my JPanel I have many components, including other JPanels, JLabels, JTextAreas, and JButtons. Becuase I want to implement a tutorial mode where another window appears and everything in my main JPanel is disabled as the new window explains each 'feature' one by one... I want a to know how to disable all the components that are inside my origiinal JPanel. I know you can use:

component.setEnabled(false);

But I don't want to write it for each component in my JPanel. I would like to know if it's possible to disable ALL components within my JPanel with a for loop or something?

Note: There are also component in nested JPanels, like the order would be

Main JPanel ---> Nested JPanel ---> Component

I also want the Final components to also be disabled...

Thanks! All help is appreciated!

Solution 1

Check out Disabled Panel for a couple of solutions.

One uses a disabled GlassPane type of approach and the other recursively disables components while keep track of the components current state so it can be enable properly later.

Solution 2

I used the following function:

void setPanelEnabled(JPanel panel, Boolean isEnabled) {
    panel.setEnabled(isEnabled);

    Component[] components = panel.getComponents();

    for (Component component : components) {
        if (component instanceof JPanel) {
            setPanelEnabled((JPanel) component, isEnabled);
        }
        component.setEnabled(isEnabled);
    }
}

Solution 3

Easy fast way :)

for (Component cp : yourPanle.getComponents() ){
        cp.setEnabled(false);
 }

Solution 4

JPanel is a Container. Container has a getComponents() method. You should traverse in the component tree recursively.
If the current child is a Container too (instanceof), you can make another recursive call, else you just call setEnabled(false).

Solution 5

I implemented a solution using JXLayer a little while ago, which uses it's lock effect capabilities to provide a "blocking" layer over the container.

It's based on JXLayer 3.x and uses the filters from JHLabs to generate it's "gray scale" effect

import com.jhlabs.image.GrayscaleFilter;
import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.Component;
import java.awt.LayoutManager;
import java.awt.RenderingHints;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Map;
import javax.swing.JComponent;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import org.jdesktop.jxlayer.JXLayer;
import org.jdesktop.jxlayer.QualityHints;
import org.jdesktop.jxlayer.plaf.BetterBufferedImageOpEffect;
import org.jdesktop.jxlayer.plaf.LayerUI;
import org.jdesktop.jxlayer.plaf.ext.LockableUI;

public class CoreXPane extends JPanel {

    private JXLayer<JPanel> layer;
    private FadedLockUI fadedLockUI;
    private JPanel pnlBody;

    public CoreXPane(LayoutManager layout) {

        super.setLayout(new BorderLayout());
        super.addImpl(getLayer(), BorderLayout.CENTER, 0);

        setLayout(layout);

    }

    public CoreXPane() {

        this(new BorderLayout());

    }

    @Override
    public void setEnabled(boolean enabled) {

        getLockUI().setLocked(!enabled);
        getBodyPane().setEnabled(enabled);
        super.setEnabled(enabled);

    }

    @Override
    protected void addImpl(Component comp, Object constraints, int index) {

        getBodyPane().add(comp, constraints, index);

    }

    @Override
    public void remove(int index) {

        getBodyPane().remove(index);

    }

    @Override
    public void removeAll() {

        getBodyPane().removeAll();

    }

    protected FadedLockUI getLockUI() {

        if (fadedLockUI == null) {

            fadedLockUI = new FadedLockUI();

        }

        return fadedLockUI;

    }

    @Override
    public void invalidate() {

        getLockUI().invalidate();

        super.invalidate();

    }

    @Override
    public void revalidate() {

        getLockUI().revalidate();
        super.revalidate();

    }

    @Override
    public void repaint() {

        getLockUI().repaint();

        super.repaint();

    }

    protected void getLayers(List<LayerUI> layers) {

        layers.add(getLockUI());

    }

    protected JXLayer<JPanel> getLayer() {

        if (layer == null) {

            List<LayerUI> layers = new ArrayList<LayerUI>(4);
            getLayers(layers);

            JComponent wrapper = getBodyPane();
            for (LayerUI ui : layers) {

                wrapper = new JXLayer(wrapper, ui);

            }

            layer = (JXLayer<JPanel>) wrapper;

        }

        return layer;

    }

    @Override
    public void setLayout(LayoutManager mgr) {

        getBodyPane().setLayout(mgr);

    }

    @Override
    public LayoutManager getLayout() {

        return getBodyPane().getLayout();

    }

    public JPanel getBodyPane() {

        if (pnlBody == null) {

            pnlBody = new JPanel();
            pnlBody.setLayout(new BorderLayout());

        }

        return pnlBody;

    }

    @Override
    public void setOpaque(boolean isOpaque) {

        super.setOpaque(isOpaque);
        getBodyPane().setOpaque(isOpaque);

    }

    public static class FadedLockUI extends LockableUI {

        public static Map<RenderingHints.Key, Object> mapRenderHints = new QualityHints();

        public FadedLockUI() {

            setLockedEffects(new BufferedImageOpEffect(new GrayscaleFilter()));

            mapRenderHints.put(RenderingHints.KEY_ALPHA_INTERPOLATION, RenderingHints.VALUE_ALPHA_INTERPOLATION_QUALITY); // okay
            mapRenderHints.put(RenderingHints.KEY_ANTIALIASING, RenderingHints.VALUE_ANTIALIAS_ON); // bad
            mapRenderHints.put(RenderingHints.KEY_COLOR_RENDERING, RenderingHints.VALUE_COLOR_RENDER_QUALITY); // okay
            mapRenderHints.put(RenderingHints.KEY_DITHERING, RenderingHints.VALUE_DITHER_ENABLE);
            mapRenderHints.put(RenderingHints.KEY_FRACTIONALMETRICS, RenderingHints.VALUE_FRACTIONALMETRICS_ON);
            mapRenderHints.put(RenderingHints.KEY_INTERPOLATION, RenderingHints.VALUE_INTERPOLATION_BILINEAR);
            mapRenderHints.put(RenderingHints.KEY_RENDERING, RenderingHints.VALUE_RENDER_QUALITY);

        }

        @Override
        protected Map<RenderingHints.Key, Object> getRenderingHints(JXLayer<? extends JComponent> l) {
            return mapRenderHints;
        }

        public void repaint() {
            setDirty(true);
        }

        public void invalidate() {
            setDirty(true);
        }

        public void revalidate() {
            setDirty(true);
        }
    }
}

Take a look at LockableUI for more details

View more solutions

Comments

[MadProgrammer]

The danger with this approach is that it ignores the enabled state of the child components. You'd also need to traverse all the child containers as well

[MadProgrammer]

Does this keep track of changes made to components between state changes? Ie, I disable the "parent", enable and disable some children and then enable the "parent", will the new states be maintained?

[camickr]

@MadProgrammer, no, it assumes no change of state will happen while the panel is disabled (ie. all components remain disabled). So, it just tracks the enabled components at the time the panel is disabled. Only those components will be enabled when the panel is enabled.

[Sanjiv Jivan]

Should use equals(..) to compare String values and not ==

[Dreamspace President]

I realize that "List<Component>" isn't the optimal choice: It should be "List<WeakReference<Component>>" with some tiny adjustments to the reenabler code. This would ensure that unnecessary instances aren't kept around.

[White_King]

This wont work when JLists are inside of the JPanel :S

[White_King]

this won't work for JLists inside of the panels.