CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javaswinguser-interfacedesign-patterns
Chapi
Chapi

Reputation: 85

Looking for a GUI design-pattern that fits this application

I'm developing a desktop app in java for a school project and I want to know how should I be designing the code of the GUI, specially because I will later have to run JUnit and functional tests on the app. I know it kinda sounds like an opinion-based question, but all I'm not asking for the "best" method, I just want to be pointed to a specific design pattern that can fit the need of my app.

To elaborate a little more on the type of application, it's "stage based", one button leads to a different section of the app. One main window, only error or warning popups (only one frame).

My current approach so far:
So far I've designed 3 different JPanel classes using eclipse's WindowBuilder (main menu, admin menu and user menu) and a AppGUI class that creates and empty frame with a CardLayout layout and fills it with one of the 3 panels (starts with main menu). Then the buttons on such panels point to the next panel. (Example, main menu -> user menu -> create profile)
The panels need to communicate with the AppGUI instance in order to execute the panel changes and later on, the functionality that the other options will have. To do this, I've been passing the AppGUI instance as a parameter to the panels on initialization and storing it inside each panel (I first thought of having a singleton AppGUI and have static reference to it, but I later on read that it's bad practice, specially for later mock testing).
Also I'd like to have the logic for the application on different classes other than the GUI classes and I'm not sure if passing the AppGUI as parameter to every method out there is good practice or not

In conclusion, it would be great if someone could point me to a specific design pattern for this kind of GUI, thanks in advance!

Upvotes: 0

Views: 490

Answers (1)

Sweeper
Sweeper

Reputation: 271260

I would suggest the Model View Controller (MVC) pattern.

The idea of MVC is that the models (your app logic), the views (UI elements), and the controllers all work together. The models and the views are completely independent of each other i.e. you don't pass a model class object to a view class object or vice versa. The models and the views should talk to the controllers and the controllers makes all the decisions.

Controllers

They contain your app's UI logic, like how to layout the views. They are notified by the model once in a while (e.g. some data have changed!). They are also notified by the views (e.g. the user pressed a button!). And controllers need to respond to these notifications. For example, when the user pressed a button, the controller might tell another view to show, or tell the model to do some calculations or some other stuff. In your case, your controller is most likely to have all the ActionListener for the buttons and text boxes on the UI.

Models

They contain your app's logic. Try to design your model to be UI independent as much as possible. If designed correctly, your model should still work without the UI i.e. you should be able to make a command line version of your app without changing the model. For example, if you are making a calculator, the model should do the actual calculation.

Views

Most of the time, you don't need to worry about this part because swing already provides you with lots of view classes, such as JButton, JPanel, JTextArea etc. If you happen to be creating your own views, remember that it should not contain anything related to the model i.e. the view should work fine with a different model.

You can always search for more info on the web.

Upvotes: 2

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