Java Swing button colors

Question

I am using NET Beans IDE for developing my application in LINUX. I have used synthetica package to generate new look and feel. All is well till now.

Now my next stage is to add colors to buttons when some database status changes.

For example:

In a restaurant i have 2 tables and when 8 people came in to dine and i will create 2 table in my software since the people are unattended i want the buttons to those 2 tables to be green. When the order is processed for any of those tables the button color of the processed table should be changed to orange. When it is under processing it should be flashing color. How to do this in java ? I will take care of database update i just want to know how to change the colors of the buttons and adding flashing technique.

Answer 1

Here is a question and several answers related to flashing a component.

Addendum: You can learn more in the article How to Use Buttons. In particular, you can use setForeground() to change the color of a button's text, but the corresponding setBackground() doesn't read well on some platforms. Using a Border is one alternative; a colored panel, shown below, is another.

package overflow;

import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.EventQueue;
import java.awt.GridLayout;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Random;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.Timer;

public class ButtonTest extends JPanel implements ActionListener {

    private static final int N = 4;
    private static final Random rnd = new Random();
    private final Timer timer = new Timer(1000, this);
    private final List<ButtonPanel> panels = new ArrayList<ButtonPanel>();

    public ButtonTest() {
        this.setLayout(new GridLayout(N, N, N, N));
        for (int i = 0; i < N * N; i++) {
            ButtonPanel bp = new ButtonPanel(i);
            panels.add(bp);
            this.add(bp);
        }
    }

    @Override
    public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
        for (JPanel p : panels) {
            p.setBackground(new Color(rnd.nextInt()));
        }
    }

    private static class ButtonPanel extends JPanel {

        public ButtonPanel(int i) {
            this.setBackground(new Color(rnd.nextInt()));
            this.add(new JButton("Button " + String.valueOf(i)));
        }
    }

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

            @Override
            public void run() {
                JFrame f = new JFrame("ButtonTest");
                f.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
                ButtonTest bt = new ButtonTest();
                f.add(bt);
                f.pack();
                f.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
                f.setVisible(true);
                bt.timer.start();
            }
        });
    }
}