How to use “Tip of the Day” library¶

“Tip of the Day” library is extension of Java Swing GUI framework, which provide UI component to show a “Tip of the Day” dialog, or show it on panel / pane.

You can find a demo application in a demo folder.

There are several classes to realize “Tip of the Day” feature.

TipOfTheDayModel¶

Data model interface of a component.

DefaultTipOfTheDayModel¶

Default model which implement TipOfTheDayModel interface. It has a data manipulation method #add which accept an object which implements Tip interface.

You can use DefaultTip data class that accept a text, html text, UI component.

DefaultTipOfTheDayModel constructor can accept List<Tip> list object.

TipLoader¶

You can create Tip object from properties.

tip.1.name=First Tip
tip.1.description=This is the description
tip.2.name=Second Tip
tip.2.description=&lt;html&gt;This is an html description

HtmlTipData¶

Data class that represents HTML file URI, base path and its text. A complete class of BasicTipOfTheDayUI abstract class, or DefaultTipOfTheDay can show HTML contents using SwingBox library’s “BrowserPane” component that can parse HTML5 and CSS.

TipOfTheDay¶

Controller of “Tip of the Day” UI component. Constructor requests the model. It has several controller methods.

#previousTip
#nextTip
#setCurrentTip
#getCurrentTip
#showDialog

previousTip and nextTip methods change content shown in order of the model. setCurrentTip takes integer number that is an index of the model.

showDialog create an dialog with default UI design and show on parent component. You can pass TipOfTheDay.ShowOnStartUpChoice object which is data class to keep a status of “show on startup” checkbox choice. When pass force boolean argument with true, it shows the dialog even when choice indicate not to show.

Portable look and feel UI classes¶

“Tip of the Day” framework use a Swing standard way for portable Look and Feel. TipOfTheDay class set its “view” from UIManager.getUI(TipOfTheDay.getUIClassID())

TipOfTheDayUI¶

A portable Look and Feel base abstract class for TipOfTheDay class. A complete class can be obtained by TipOfTheDay#getUI method.

You can obtain “Tip of the Day” dialog using TipOfTheDayUI#createDialog method.

When you do not want to interact with UI class, you can show the dialog using TipOfTheDay#showDialog method.

After obtaining JDialog object by TipOfTheDayUI#createDialog, you can decorate and modify the object as you want.

You can find an example in a demo application that set a size of dialog using setPrefferedSize method. Please see a ShowDialogActionListener class.

BasicTipOfTheDayUI¶

A plaf basic class that have common methods to handle all the components. When you want to build your own UI class, you can extends the BasicTipOfTheDayUI class.

DefaultTipOfTheDayUI¶

Default UI class for TipOfTheDay. When UIManager.get(uiClassID) returns null, TipOfTheDay constructor use the DefaultTipOfTheDayUI as a plaf class.

Customize keymaps¶

BasicTipOfTheDayUI class defines two ActionMap to support shortcut keys in user applications. These are inherited also in DefaultTipOfTheDayUI class.

There is BasicTipOfTheDayUI#getActionMap method that is

```

ActionMap getActionMap() {: ActionMap map = new ActionMapUIResource(); map.put(“previousTip”, new PreviousTipAction()); map.put(“nextTip”, new NextTipAction()); return map;

}

```

You can use two action keys, “previousTip” and “nextTip”, to set your shortcut keys with InputMap.

You can see a sample usage in TipOfTheDayDemo around line 140, like

```: TipOfTheDay totd = new TipOfTheDay(model); totd.getInputMap().put(KeyStroke.getKeyStroke(), “previousTip”); totd.getInputMap().put(KeyStroke.getKeyStroke(“F2”), “nextTip”);

```

This sample set F1 for previous and F2 for next tip selection action shortcut keys.