I was working on a project, which required the ability to export the contents of the table as a Microsoft Excel file. After saving the file, the file had to be open immediately by Microsoft Excel. However this is multi-platform application and needed to support at least Windows, Mac and Linux. What if the user didn’t have Microsoft Excel installed, but they did have another program capable of editing/viewing Excel files? Users may have installed alternatives such as Open Office, Libre Office, and Microsoft Office for Mac. How can a Java Swing program invoke an unknown native program without having to program to every native executable? After searching the web, there was an elegant solution.
Monthly Archives: January 2012
Opening files with native applications across multiple platforms
Posted by Jim
on January 19, 2012
1 comment
Do more with JPopupMenu
Posted by Jim
on January 10, 2012
No comments
Java Swing’s JPopupMenu is very versatile for displaying any type of information. It can be used for more than just display a popup menu. JPopupMenu inherits all the features of java.awt.Container including the ability to set a LayoutManager and add one or more arbitrary java.awt.Component.
Below are two examples demonstrating how to use a JPopupMenu to “popup” more complex components. The first show a popup with an array of buttons and the second example shows a popup whose content is a table.
