JButton with padding between its border and the button itself

Question

I've a JButton that has its background green-colored and its border as a LineBorder. I would like to insert a space between the button and the border, a kind of padding. I've tried with setMargin(new Insets(x,y,t,z)) but it seems not working. This is my piece of code.

JButton JBtn=new JButton("sdfd");
JBtn.setBorder(BorderFactory.createLineBorder(Color.CYAN,5));
JBtn.setBackground(Color.GREEN);
JBtn.setMargin(new Insets(5,5,10,10));

Any advice?

Solution 1

The borders are part of the button and clicking on them will click the button. You can set the background as green, then paint borders over the background:

jBtn.setBackground(Color.GREEN);
jBtn.setBorder(BorderFactory.createCompoundBorder(
               BorderFactory.createLineBorder(Color.CYAN, 5),
               BorderFactory.createLineBorder(Color.BLACK, 20)));

I've tried with setMargin(new Insets(x,y,t,z)) but it seems not working.

Because if you read the documentation for setMargin you'll see that

[...] if a non-default border is set on the button, it is that Border object's responsibility to create the appropriate margin space (else this property will effectively be ignored).

Also, reserve uppercase names for classes, rename JBtn to jBtn.

Solution 2

The change to the Border is changing the way the margins work (they don't seem to be included in the decisions for determining the layout any more).

Instead, you can use a CompoundBorder, for example...

JBtn.setBorder(BorderFactory.createCompoundBorder(
        BorderFactory.createLineBorder(Color.CYAN, 5), 
        BorderFactory.createEmptyBorder(5, 5, 10, 10)));

Comments

[user1803551]

You want the space in between the button and the border to still be part of the button?

[user2896152]

Yes, it's exactly what I want ;-) the green background only in a section of the button.

[user2896152]

Thank you. I tried the solution you suggested. Unfortunately, the result is not what I was looking for. I'd like that the label is at the center of the button, but only the label is green-colored whereas the space between the label and the border remains black. Is that possible?