A maximizable dialog with a parent in Swing

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posted 1 week ago

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I'm collaborating on a mature desktop Swing application

A customer wants a dialog that:

1. Has a maximize button in the corner (I assume, the other standard frame buttons too, minimize and close)
2. Has a relationship with the "root frame". For example, the root frame shouldn't be minimizable while the dialog is still visible

I reimplemented the dialog, which used to be a `JDialog`, to be a `JFrame` subclass. It solved the first problem, but now it's totally oblivious to any root frames at all as `JFrame`s don't have parents

They [say][1] adding a maximize button to a `JDialog` is possible but not a good idea (though, I'm not sure why). The app is used in medical facilities, I don't want to take any chances

How do I meet the customer's expectations?

[1]: https://stackoverflow.com/a/3897958/23539854

Carey Brown

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If you extend JFrame and allow it to take a "parent" parameter it should work.

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Tim Holloway

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Welcome to the Ranch, R.S.!

Dialogs generally don't have a GUI parent (as opposed to a logical parent) because that would constrain them to always fit inside their parent window. Likewise, maximize/minimize isn't common, since when a dialog is presented, it is expected to be the most important thing on the screen.

A Modal Dialog blocks all messages to the rest of the app. A Modeless Dialog is more interactive, such as showing progress of an app process, but Swing isn't as concerned with modal/modeless as some systems are. A modeless dialog equivalent is probably best presented in a child frame window, in which case the resizing gadgets come for free.

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Real Sergey Zolotaryov

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Carey Brown wrote:If you extend JFrame and allow it to take a "parent" parameter it should work.

But JFrames don't have parents, do they?

Real Sergey Zolotaryov

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Tim Holloway wrote:Welcome to the Ranch, R.S.!

Dialogs generally don't have a GUI parent (as opposed to a logical parent) because that would constrain them to always fit inside their parent window. Likewise, maximize/minimize isn't common, since when a dialog is presented, it is expected to be the most important thing on the screen.

A Modal Dialog blocks all messages to the rest of the app. A Modeless Dialog is more interactive, such as showing progress of an app process, but Swing isn't as concerned with modal/modeless as some systems are. A modeless dialog equivalent is probably best presented in a child frame window, in which case the resizing gadgets come for free.

Can I somehow achieve my goal?