design question for java SWING app

Question

Note: This is for a SWING course I am taking.

I have an assignment to make a simple graphics package (draw circles, squares, etc).

I was thinking of having multiple dialog boxes for entering the shape parameters, ie:

Point has x,y Circle has x,y,radius Rectangle has x,y,width,height etc.

I was thinking of creating a super dialog class with X,Y and extending it to allow for Width,Height or Radius etc.

For example, the rectangleDialog would invoke the super constructor with the additional parameters required:

public abstract class XYDialog extends JFrame {
   public XYDialog(PARAMETERS ... params) {
       // build the dialog by iterating through PARAMETERS
   }
}


public class RectangleDialog extends XYDialog {
  public RectangleDialog() {
    super(PARAMETERS.WIDTH, PARAMETERS.HEIGHT);
  }
}

then the super class is responsible for building the GUI

Does this seem like a reasonable approach? Does this make sense?

Thanks

Answer 1

Yes, I think it's a good solution. But, as stated before, reconsider the naming of your classes. If you extend a JFrame, call it SomethingFrame. If PARAMETERS is a normal class, it should not be in capitals.

I would also suggest extending JPanel instead of JFrame, and let the one instatiating these classes determine if to put them in a JFrame or a JDialog. A JFrame creates a whole new window, and you normally only have one main window for your application, whereas dialogs and panels are created on the fly.