Bevel...........can i make it

[Kajol Shroff]

Hi everybody,
Can somebody please tell me how do i implement bevel in JAVA...i can use rectangles ............but i need to implement bevel...
Can anybody explain me with some examples an explain the examples... so that i will understand it better
Kajol

[Madhav Lakkapragada]

forgive my ignorance, but whats a bevel!
could you throw more light on that.
Thanks.
- satya

[Nathan Pruett]

Kajol,
Bevels are pretty easy... all that they really are are rectangles that are drawn using two colors so they have that 3D edge look. All you have to do to draw a beveled edge in Java ( other than use a beveled border in Swing ) is to draw the rectangle using lines ( i.e. g.drawLine( x1, y1, x2, y2 ) ). For this you need two points ( the upper left and lower right corners of the rectangle ) and the two colors you want the bevel to be ( the light edge and the dark edge ).
Here's a short function to draw a bevel...

public void drawBevel( Graphics g, int x1, int y1, int x2, int y2, Color darkColor, Color lightColor )
{
    Color oldColor = g.getColor();
    g.setColor( lightColor );
    g.drawLine( x1, y1, x2, y1 );
    g.drawLine( x1, y1, x1, y2 );
    g.setColor( darkColor );
    g.drawLine( x1, y2, x2, y2 );
    g.drawLine( x2, y2, x2, y1 );
    g.setColor( oldColor );
}

HTH,
-Nate
P.S. - Madhav... just look around the edges of the buttons on this page. Those are bevels... the little 3D look that the edges of the buttons have.
[This message has been edited by Nathan Pruett (edited March 28, 2001).]

[Madhav Lakkapragada]

P.S. - Madhav... just look around the edges of the buttons on this page. Those are bevels... the
little 3D look that the edges of the buttons have.
Thanks Nate, I appreciate that.
I should get my skills Swinging....
- satya

[Kajol Shroff]

Hi Nathan,
I tried ur method by first declaraing it in the class and then i called it ............but it dosent work.......
can u elaborate it ...........and expalin me with a full fledged program............as that would be really helpfull
Awaitng for ur reply.......
Kajol

[Nathan Pruett]

Here's an example class that uses the drawBevel method I wrote...

import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
public class DrawBevels extends Panel
{
    public static void main( String args[] )
    {
        Frame f = new Frame( "Bevel test" );
        f.setSize( 300, 300 );
        f.addWindowListener( new WindowAdapter() {
            public void windowClosing( WindowEvent e )
            {
                System.exit( 0 );
            }
        } );
        f.add( new DrawBevels(), BorderLayout.CENTER );
        f.setVisible( true );
    }
    public void paint( Graphics g )
    {
        g.drawString( "Bevel", 100, 100 );
        drawBevel( g, 80, 80, 150, 110, Color.darkGray, Color.lightGray );
    }
    private void drawBevel( Graphics g, int x1, int y1, int x2, int y2, Color darkColor, Color lightColor )
    {
        Color oldColor = g.getColor();
        g.setColor( lightColor );
        g.drawLine( x1, y1, x2, y1 );
        g.drawLine( x1, y1, x1, y2 );
        g.setColor( darkColor );
        g.drawLine( x1, y2, x2, y2 );
        g.drawLine( x2, y2, x2, y1 );
        g.setColor( oldColor );
    }
}

HTH,
-Nate

[Kajol Shroff]

Hi Nathan,
Thanks a lot for ur example .........it expalined me everything ..
I was able to implement it........
Javaranch is Gr8 ........
Everybody i mean all the subscribers aare gr8 too...
It has taught me JAVA actually....
Kajol