Overlay a JButton over JLabel in Java Swing?

Johnydep picture Johnydep · Feb 4, 2012 · Viewed 11.3k times · Source

Is it possible to overlay a Button over a Label in Swing?

For example, if have a JLabel with image and no text, and i want to overlay my button over this JLabel. Label is defined something like:

myLabel = new javax.swing.JLabel(new ImageIcon( myPicture ));  

If not, then any ideas how can i realize this, thank you.

EDIT: Actually i read about adding JPanel to a JLabel, when i add a Panel with button layout, it compiles fine but nothing is visible, just the JLabel with image

UPDATE: As suggested by @paranoid-android, somehow i have solved my problem. However i still have to know how can i customize the positions of components overlayed on top of JLabel as i don't have much control (probably because normally i use netbeans for drawing layouts, and this would require hard coding).

Something Like this worked:

ImagePanel(Image image, int id) {
    this.image = image;
    this.tile = false;

    JButton backButton = new JButton();
    JButton nextButton = new JButton();
    backButton.setText(" BACK ");
    nextButton.setText(" NEXT ");


    add(backButton);
    add(nextButton);

};

@Override
public void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
    super.paintComponent(g);
    g.drawImage(image, 0, 0, getWidth(), getHeight(), this);
}

Answer

rtheunissen picture rtheunissen · Feb 4, 2012

You can do it using a JLayeredPane, although if I understand correctly, the absolute best way to do that would be to override paintComponent:

// as part of your JPanel
@Override
public void paintComponent(Graphics g){
     super.paintComponent(g);
     g.drawImage(background, 0, 0, this);
}

Then you can add components to the panel as you like, without the need for the JLabel.