why is importing a font breaking other parts of code?

Question

Modifiers.java:

package game;
import java.awt.*;
import java.io.*;
import javax.swing.*;
public class Modifiers  extends Data{
    public static void setupJcomponents(){
        frame.setUndecorated(true);
        frame.setSize(MW,MH);
        frame.setResizable(false);
        frame.setVisible(true);
        frame.setLayout(null);
        for(int btn=0; btn<4; btn++) {
            Buttons[btn] = new JPanel();
            Buttons[btn].setBounds(btn*100,0,100,100);
            Buttons[btn].setVisible(true);
            Buttons[btn].setBackground(new Color(btn*50,btn*50,btn*50));
            frame.getContentPane().add(Buttons[btn]);
        }
        menuBackground.setBounds(0,0,MW,MH);
        menuBackground.setVisible(true);
        menuBackground.setBackground(Color.black);
        healthIndicator.setText(String.valueOf(healthValue));
        healthIndicator.setFont(new Font("Terminal", Font.PLAIN, 100));
        healthIndicator.setBounds(600,600,100,100);
        healthIndicator.setForeground(Color.blue);
        try{
            PixelFont = Font.createFont(Font.TRUETYPE_FONT, new File("PixelFont.ttf"));
        } catch (IOException e) {
            PixelFont = new Font("Terminal", Font.PLAIN, 100);
        } catch(FontFormatException e) {
            PixelFont = new Font("Terminal", Font.PLAIN, 100);
        }
        GraphicsEnvironment ge = GraphicsEnvironment.getLocalGraphicsEnvironment();
        ge.registerFont(PixelFont);
        frame.getContentPane().add(healthIndicator);
        frame.getContentPane().add(menuBackground);
    }
}

Data.java:

package game;
import java.awt.*;
import javax.swing.*;
public class Data { 
        // this is where I will declare and alter all variable that will be used
        public static JFrame frame = new JFrame();
        public static JLabel healthIndicator = new JLabel(); 
        public static JPanel Buttons[] = new JPanel[5];
        public static JPanel menuBackground = new JPanel();
        public static final Dimension screenSize = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getScreenSize();
        public static final int MW = (int) screenSize.getWidth();
        public static final int MH = (int) screenSize.getHeight();
        public static Font PixelFont;
        public static int maxHealth = 100;
        public static int healthValue = maxHealth;

}

Frame.java:

package game;
public class Frame {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Modifiers.setupJcomponents();
    }
}

whenever i rum Frame.java the menu Background disappears and the text altogether stops showing up. but if the path to the .ttf file is wrong it just skips over the font and uses the default instead. How do i get this font to load properly as well as not cause my background background to disappear? I have tried changing the path to the .ttf file and turning various parts of the code into comments, but even if the font of the health indicator is a default font, these errors will still occur, however if i try removing the try-catch loop then the errors aren't there anymore.

Answer 1

There are all kinds of problems with the code. Not exactly sure why the Fonts is causing an issue, but it has something to do with the overall structure of your code and you aren't using Swing the way it was designed to be used.

whenever i rum Frame.java the menu Background disappears and the text altogether stops showing up

What appears to be directly related to the above question is that the setVisible(true) statement should be executed AFTER all the components have been added to the frame. This will make sure all the components are painted.

Note this will still only work by chance because you happen to add the "background" panel to the frame last. Swing paints components in the reverse order that are added to any given panel.

Regarding other problems.

1. your painting code only works by chance. You should not be adding all your components directly to the frame. Swing is not designed to paint components in 3 dimensions directly when the components overlap one another. Swing is designed to have a parent child relationship. So that would mean you add your "background" panel to the frame. Then you add a panel containing the buttons to the "background" and you add the "health" component to the background.

2. Related to above you should NOT be using a null layout. Swing was designed to be used with a layout manager. This will make sure components don't overlap. So in your case you can use a BorderLayout for the "background" panel. Then you can add the "buttons" panel to the BorderLayout.PAGE_Start and the "health" component to the `BorderLayout.PAGE_END. This will ensure that the components are at the top/bottom of the background panel.

3. Don't set the size of the frame. Instead you use the setExtendedState(JFrame.MAXIMIZED_BOTH) property. The frame will be the size of the screen. The "GamePanel" will be take up all the space of the frame. So there is no need to set or use hardcoded values.

4. Don't use static variables and method. This indicates poor design. What you should be doing is creating a GamePanel class, which would essentially be your background panel. This class would contain the instance variables needed for the game. It would create the "buttons" panel and the "health" component and add it to itself.

5. Variable names should NOT start with upper case characters.