COMP 310 Fall 2012	HW01: Simple GUI Program with Polymorphism

In this assignment we will get used to working with the Eclipse environment, it's various plug-in tools and refresh our skills with polymorphic objects.   This is a warm-up assignment to get you used to the tools and restart your programming minds and thus,  is not indicative of the skills required for and complexity of future assignments!

Using Resources

The directions in this assignment (and subsequent assignments) are deliberately vague in places.   The goal is for you to develop your skills in finding, assembling and utilizing information that is spread across multiple resources.  Here is a non-exhaustive list of resources to get you started:

• Java Resources
  • Comp310 Java Resources
    •  Fall 2011 specific
    • Multi-year
  • Oracle/Sun sites
    • Main site: http://java.sun.com
    • Documentation for supplied classes and interfaces: http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/api/
• Eclipse Resources
  • General
  • WindowBuilder GUI builder tool
  • UML Lab diagramming tool
  • Subclipse Subversion (SVN) source control tool
    • Turn-in instructions that may be unique to this year. -- Please be sure to read this an make sure that you have the latest info!

The Development Process

Software development is an iterative process of refinement, so we will make our total application piece by piece, sometimes going back and modifying or perhaps even deleting previous code in order to accommodate the new features as we add them in.   

Never Stray Far From Working Code!

It is a lot easier to find problems in and fix your work when it is only a small difference from operational code. 

• Test often and early!  Writing more than a half a dozen lines of code before checking to make sure everything works is pushing it.
• Fix errors and warnings right away.   Don't let them pile up!
• Don't delete old code until the new replacement code is fully operational.   Just comment it out so you can restore it if all else fails.

Before you start be sure you have Java, Eclipse and the UML Lab and Subclipse plug-ins installed!

Make committing to the SVN source control a regular part of your development process.    This has many benefits, including:

• You can always roll your code back to an earlier, working version.
• You can easily show your work to the staff because the staff has access to the Comp310 SVN accounts.
• Turning in your work is automatic.  Your last submission before the due date is what will be graded unless prior arrangements were made.

Before you start, get Eclipse connected to your Comp310 SVN repository by following the directions on the Subclipse web page to

1.  Open a SVN Perspective
2. Add a New SVN Repository to View in Subclipse

You are expected to fully comment all of your code.  For more information, see the resources page on Commenting in Java.

Make a simple GUI application

In this part of the assignment we will construct a simple Java GUI application.

Read the following primer and tutorial FIRST, before starting this part of the assignment!

•  Java GUI Progamming Primer
• WindowBuilder tutorial

Never modify the auto-generated code inside of your  initGUI() method unless explicitly instructed to do so.   Even then, limit yourself to only the indicated changes at the indicated locations!    Modifying code you do not understand is a sure-fire way to break your application!

1. Create a new Java Project
   • Use the proper naming of your project folder! See above!
   • Be sure to make separate source ("src") and class ("bin") directories.
2. Create a package called "view".
3. Create a new frame in the view package:
   1. Right-click the view package and select New/Other...
   2. In the dialog box that appears, select WindowBuilder/Swing Designer/JFrame and click Next
   3. Type in an appropriately meaningful name for the class.    The "Use advanced template for generate JFrame" box should be checked  (we will refactor the main() method to a more appropriate location later). 
   4. Click "Finish".
4. Click the green Run button at the top of Eclipse.
   • If it asks, select "Java Application" and the frame class you just made.
   • A plain frame with resizing buttons should appear.
5. Fix WindowBuilder's bad auto-generated code now!
   1. (Only necessary if WindowBuilder preferences were not set yet!) Separate the construction of the frame from its initialization:
      1. Move the auto-generated code out of the constructor into a new "initGUI()" method.
      2. Add a call to initGUI() from inside the constructor.
   2. Encapsulate the start-up process of the frame and separate it away from the start-up process of the application:
      1. Move the call to "setVisible(true)" from inside of main() to inside of a new "start()" method.
      2. Replace the old call to setVisible(true) with a call to start().
6. Click on the green "Run" button again to make sure your frame still works.
7. This would be a good time to do your first commit to SVN:
   • See the directions on how to use Subclipse to connect your Comp310 SVN repository.
   • Follow the directions to "Add an Existing Project to Subversion" and then to "Committing the Entire Project"
   • Commit often and early!!   We recommend that you do a commit every step or two below.
8. Fix the class "does not declare a static final serialVersionUID field of type long..." warning.   See the web page about this.
9. Make sure that you can see the graphical representation of your frame in the WindowBuilder design mode and place two JPanels onto the frame.  Be sure to give the panels meaningful names (i.e. not the default names!):
   • One panel in the "Center" location of the frame (see the discussion on Layout Managers).
     • Set the panel's background color to something other than the default gray.  
     • Run your program.   You should see the new panel.
   • One panel in the "North" location of the frame.
     • It can be difficult to drop the panel so that it will end up in the frame's North location.  
     • Set the panel's background color to contrast with the frame and the other panel.
     • Run your program to verify that everything is as you think it should be.
10. Drop a JLabel and a JButton onto the North panel.   As always, give them meaningful names.  
    • You can change the names later if you change your mind by using the "rename" features in Eclipse, which will safely rename the variables and all references to that variable.
    • Run your program.   The button won't do anything yet but change its shade slightly as it is clicked.
11. Add an <anonymous> ActionListener to the button by simply double-clicking the button (same as right-clicking the button and selecting "add event handler/action/actionPerformed" or going to the events panel view in the component's Properties tab, expanding "action" and double-clicking "performed".) 
    • Double-clicking an existing event in a component's Properties tab will switch to source-code mode and the cursor will be placed at the appropriate spot in the code.
    • In the empty actionPerformed method body of the auto-generated ActionListener for the event, write the line of code that will set the label's text to some new String.
    • Run your code and check if your button does what you want it to do.   For debugging purposes, it might be helpful to have your actionPerformed code also print some status information to the console tab whenever the button is clicked.
12. Add a JTextField to the North panel and modify your button click event code to set the label's text to whatever text has been typed into the text field.   Test your code.
13. Override the paintComponent() method of the center panel to perform some custom painting.
    1. Click on the center panel on the GUI designer.   This should take you to the line of code where the panel is instantiated.
    2. Change the instantiation of the JPanel to an anonymous inner class instance which overrides the paintComponent().  The overridden method will paint a filled colored oval at a fixed location on the panel:
       

       ... = new JPanel() {
       	/**
       	* Overridden paintComponent method to paint a shape in the panel.
       	* @param g The Graphics object to paint on.
       	**/
       	public void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
       	    super.paintComponent(g);   // Do everything normally done first, e.g. clear the screen.
       	    g.setColor(Color.RED);  // Set the color to use when drawing
       	    g.fillOval(75, 100, 20, 40);  // paint a filled 20x40 red ellipse whose upper left corner is at (75, 100)
       	}
       };

    3.  You may need to import java.awt.* to get the Graphics and Color class references.
    4. Fix the class "does not declare a static final serialVersionUID field of type long..." warning.   See the web page about this.

Polymorphic Shapes

In this part of the assignment we will construct a Union Design Pattern abstract class hierarchy to represent shapes that are capable of polymorphically drawing themselves onto the screen.   We will be adding this capability to the simple GUI application developed above.

Read the following primer and tutorial FIRST, before starting this part of the assignment!

Comment the code as you create it!   Fill out the comment boxes when UML Lab presents them to you!

The directions here are deliberately more vague than above because you should be better versed with the tools plus the emphasis is on expressing your own ideas about the design and implementation of the shapes.

1. Create a shape package in your project.
2. Create the abstract share superclass:
   •  If you have UML Lab installed successfully:
     1. Create a new, empty UML diagram
     2. Use UML Lab to create an abstract AShape superclass in the shape package:
        • Uncheck the box "Constructors from superclass" to suppress the autogeneration of a constructor for AShape.
   • If you do not have UML Lab, right-click the shape package and select "New/Class"
     • Step 1: Get UML Lab.   If all else fails:
     • Type in "AShape" as the name of the new class and check the "abstract" box.   Click "Finish".
3. Add any private fields you think that an abstract shape should have.
   • Note that below we will write a method to paint the shape at an arbitrary location -- how does this affect what fields you think the shape should have?
   • Be sure to add comments to the field.
   • Add getters and setters for the field as you see fit.   Ask yourself what is reasonable to have and what is not reasonable to have in your conception of a shape.   Be sure to document this.
4. Add the following abstract method:   public abstract void paint(???)  ( the input parameters to be determined by you) which will paint the shape at a given, specific location.
• Make sure that your documentation clearly spells out what you mean by "location" with regards to an arbitrary shape.
• You will need to manually add the documentation for the input parameters to the code.
5. Create ONE concrete sub-class of AShape whose paint() method draws a specific shape.
6. Modify the paintComponent() method of the center panel of your GUI so that it ALSO paints an AShape at a given location.  
   • The AShape should be private field of the frame.
   • Hard code an instance value for the AShape field using your concrete sub-class to test that it works at all.
   • Do not cover up the original painting output from the previous section.
7. Add a panel on the East, West or South side of the GUI.
   • Make it a contrasting color so you can see it.
8. Create at least 2 more concrete shape sub-classes.
   • Do different shapes need different fields?   How does this affect their constructors?
9. Create buttons on the new panel that set the value of the AShape field to a specific instance of a shape sub-class and then call the center panel's repaint() method.
   • Clicking on the buttons should change the shape being shown.
10. Create a Composite Design Pattern shape that contains two AShapes and whose paint method delegates to each composee.
11. Add buttons to demonstrate that you can now draw compound shapes of arbitrary complexity.

You should have created a UML diagram showing the entire shape hierarchy  (do not include the GUI components).

Grading Critieria  (100 pts total)

• Full functionality of all buttons, etc. as described above.   --  20 pts
• All GUI components are organized as described above -- 10 pts
• UML diagram created -- 5 pts
• Design of abstract shape class (fields and methods) -- 10 pts
• Reasonable class, field, variable and method names.  -- 10 pts
• Shapes can be composed appropriately -- 10 pts
• All code you wrote is fully commented -- 20 pts
• Your code produces no warnings -- 10 pts
• Discretionary -- 5 pts

© 2012 by Stephen Wong