How to make JFrame transparent?

Question

How to make JFrame transparent? I want to make my JFrame transparent. User should see the background when my JFrame is on top of it.

Answer 1

If you do not have any objection in using restricted API classes then you can do this with AWTUtilities class and setWindowOpacity() method of that class. Here and here is a tutorial on how to use it? And here is the version using Java native access.

code example

public static void main(String args[]) {
    java.awt.EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
        public void run() {
            javax.swing.JFrame fr = new NewJFrame();
            com.sun.awt.AWTUtilities.setWindowOpacity(fr, 0.7 f);
            fr.setVisible(true);
        }
    });
}

Answer 2

I found another solution.

Set the background color of your frame to

// Set the frame background color to a transparent color
yourFrameHere.setBackground(new Color(0, 0, 0, 0));

And remember to set the opacity off of the contentpane (your JPanel or other component)

// turn off opacity of the content pane
yourContentPaneHere.setOpaque(false);