Thread: java and programming newbie need help with my GUI

hey guys this is my first post inside this forum so i hope i am accepted well. i just started my first java class and am having trouble with my week 3 lap. im pretty new at this so please bear with me. ill post my code and the text from the assignment. the trouble im having is that my grid wont display inside my frame for the buttons on the calculator. i also dont know how to change the colors on the calculator like im supposed to. im using eclipse as per request by the prof. any help you guys could give would be great. THANKS!!

ps. i couldnt get the picture of what this calculator is to look like to display. but it is a standard 4x4 button calculator with the display at the top.

import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.JTextField;
import java.awt.*;


public class ShowGridLayout extends JFrame{
public ShowGridLayout () {

JPanel p1 = new JPanel();
p1.setLayout (new GridLayout(4, 4, 5, 5));

for (int i=1; i<=16; i++); {
p1.add(new JButton ("" + 1));
}

p1.add(new JButton("7"));
p1.add(new JButton("8"));
p1.add(new JButton("9"));
p1.add(new JButton("/"));
p1.add(new JButton("4"));
p1.add(new JButton("5"));
p1.add(new JButton("6"));
p1.add(new JButton("*"));
p1.add(new JButton("1"));
p1.add(new JButton("2"));
p1.add(new JButton("3"));
p1.add(new JButton("-"));
p1.add(new JButton("0"));
p1.add(new JButton("."));
p1.add(new JButton("="));
p1.add(new JButton("+"));

JPanel p2 = new JPanel(new BorderLayout());
p2.add(new JTextField(""), BorderLayout.NORTH);
p2.add(p1, BorderLayout.CENTER);

}

public static void main (String[] args){
ShowGridLayout frame = new ShowGridLayout ();
frame.setTitle("Calculator");
frame.setSize(250, 250);
frame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOS E);
frame.setVisible(true);
}
}

Week 3 Programming Assignment

Create Java programs for the following two problems.

1. Write a Java application to display the following GUI. At this point you are only implementing the display. We are not ready to make the calculator actually do any calculations!



This program has the following requirements:

1. The size of the calculator is 250 x 250 pixels.
2. The background and foreground color of the calculator buttons must alternate in a checker board pattern as shown above. You can choose any pair of colors for your foreground and background colors.
3. The buttons should have at least 5 pixels of space between them.
4. The text on the buttons should be SanSerif size 16 and be bold.
5. Your application should be implemented in a single class. The main method of the class does nothing more than create an object of the class. The constructor of the class creates and displays the GUI. The constructor may call other methods of the class if needed.
6. The class must inherit from JFrame as the following demonstrates:

public myGUI extends JFrame { … }

The extends keyword specifies inheritance. Inside the class you can directly access methods of the JFrame class without specifying an object due to inheritance. So when you want to add something to the frame, simply say

add(someComponent);

You can specify the title of the window in your constructor by simply adding the following line as the first thing in your constructor.

super(“Title of your window!”);

Welcome acezeesawtooth
Please see the Announcements page for the use of code tags and other useful forum tips.

p1 adds a few buttons after a very short lived for loop.
p2 adds a couple of things including p1. Then p2 and it's contents remain invisible while the frame is shown empty.
To your second question, are you stuck on how to change the color of the object or how to determine which color it should be?