Swing Library for Dragging Components in Java

Question

I am trying to create a type of Graphics Editor that allows users to create graphic depictions of American Football plays. To do this, the User should be able to do the followin

Answer 1

The basic code for dragging a component is:

public class DragListener extends MouseInputAdapter
{
    Point location;
    MouseEvent pressed;

    public void mousePressed(MouseEvent me)
    {
        pressed = me;
    }

    public void mouseDragged(MouseEvent me)
    {
        Component component = me.getComponent();
        location = component.getLocation(location);
        int x = location.x - pressed.getX() + me.getX();
        int y = location.y - pressed.getY() + me.getY();
        component.setLocation(x, y);
     }
}

You create an single instance of the class and then add it to any component you wish to drag.

DragListener drag = new DragListener();
component.addMouseListener( drag );
component.addMouseMotionListener( drag );

You can also check out the Component Mover class. It allows you to drag windows on the desktop or components in panel. It provides a few more dragging features.

Edit:

It takes me a couple of lines of code to test this solution:

JButton button = new JButton("hello");
button.setSize( button.getPreferredSize() );

DragListener drag = new DragListener();
button.addMouseListener( drag );
button.addMouseMotionListener( drag );

JPanel panel = new JPanel( null );
panel.add( button );

JFrame frame = new JFrame();
frame.add( panel );
frame.setSize(400, 400);
frame.setVisible( true );

Put the above code in a main() method and you have simple code to test.