Java Glossary : ContentPane

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ContentPane

When Swing's JFrame class got too large it was broken into pieces. Unfortunately, the designers of Swing decided not to mask that change from the users with a facade design pattern. For some functions, such as adding a JComponent, you no longer use JFrame.add, but instead you must first get the associated Container object of the JFrame with JFrame.getContentPane(), and add to that. If you screw up, and accidentally use JFrame.add(), you won't find out until run time. To keep you on your toes, some Components have ContentPanes and some do not. in particular JPanel does not. You add to a JPanel the some was as before. Note there is no such class as ContentPane. getContentPane returns a vanilla Container.

If you do a jFrame.setBackground( Color.black ), you won't see the effect, except when resizing. Then you will see the black frame behind the ContentPane only briefly. You must do a contentPane.setBackground( Color.black ) instead to get a permanent black background. Similarly use contentPane for setForeground and setFont.

The following methods should normally be used on the ContentPane, note the JFrame itself.

ContentPane Methods
add
getBackground
getFont
getForeground
getLayout
setBackground
setFont
setForeground
setLayout

JDialog ¤ JFrame ¤ JPanel ¤ pane ¤ Swing

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