Using Multiple JFrames in java ? is it a good practice?

The multiple JFrame approach in java has been something I’ve implemented since I began programming Swing apps. For the most part, I did it in the beginning because I didn’t know any better. However, as I matured in my experience and knowledge as a developer and as began to read and absorb the opinions of so many more experienced Java devs online, I made an attempt to shift away from the multiple JFrame approach. As I began implementing model dialogs to control “child” windows and JInternalFrames for separate components, I was quite surprised, as I was doing what I thought was best-practice! But, as they say, It is not a good practice.

So, I’m going to explain the benefits of the multiple JFrame approach, as well as myth-bust some of the cons that others have presented.

Ultimate flexibility in layout – By allowing separate JFrames, you give your end-user the ability to spread out and control what’s on his/her screen. The concept feels “open” and non-constricting. You lose this when you go towards one big JFrame and a bunch of JInternalFrames.
Works well for very modularized applications – In my case, most of my applications have 3 – 5 big “modules” that really have nothing to do with each other whatsoever. For instance, one module might be a sales dashboard and one might be an accounting dashboard. They don’t talk to each other or anything. However, the executive might want to open both and them being separate frames on the taskbar makes his life easier.
Myth: Hard to code – This is not true in my experience. I don’t see why it would be any easier to create a JInternalFrame than a JFrame. In fact, in my experience, JInternalFramesoffer much less flexibility. I have developed a systematic way of handling the opening & closing of JFrames in my applets that really works well. I control the frame almost completely from within the frame’s code itself; the creation of the new frame, SwingWorkers that control the retrieval of data on background threads and the GUI code on EDT, restoring/bringing to front the frame if the user tries to open it twice, etc. All you need to open my JFrames is call a public static method open() and the open method, combined with a windowClosing() event handles the rest (is the frame already open? is it not open, but loading? etc.) I made this approach a template so it’s not difficult to implement for each frame.
Myth/Unproven: Resource Heavy – I’d like to see some facts behind this speculative statement. Although, perhaps, you could say a JFrame needs more space than a JInternalFrame, even if you open up 100 JFrames, how many more resources would you really be consuming? If your concern is memory leaks because of resources: calling dispose() frees all resources used by the frame for garbage collection (and, again I say, a JInternalFrame should invoke exactly the same concern).

I feel like I could write more. Anyways,

A great example of multiple frames/single document per frame (SDI) vs single frame/multiple documents per frame (MDI) is Microsoft Excel. Some of MDI benefits:

it is possible to have a few windows in non rectangular shape – so they don’t hide desktop or other window from another process (e.g. web browser)
it is possible to open a window from another process over one Excel window while writing in second Excel window – with MDI, trying to write in one of internal windows will give focus to the entire Excel window, hence hiding window from another process
it is possible to have different documents on different screens, which is especially useful when screens do not have the same resolution.

Here is the Code to implement the Multiple JFrames


//import statement
import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.EventQueue;
import java.awt.Font;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.border.EmptyBorder;

//create class and extend with JFrame
public class OldWindow extends JFrame {
  //declare variable
  private JPanel contentPane;

  /**
   * Launch the application.
   */
  //main method
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    /* It posts an event (Runnable)at the end of Swings event list and is
    processed after all other GUI events are processed.*/
    EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
      public void run() {
        //try - catch block
        try {
          //Create object of OldWindow
          OldWindow frame = new OldWindow();
          //set frame visible true
          frame.setVisible(true);
        } catch (Exception e) {
          e.printStackTrace();
        }
      }
    });
  }

  /**
   * Create the frame.
   */
  public OldWindow() //constructor 
  {
    //set frame title
    setTitle("Old Frame");
    //set default close operation
    setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.DISPOSE_ON_CLOSE);
    //set bounds of the frame
    setBounds(100, 100, 450, 300);
    //create object of JPanel
    contentPane = new JPanel();
    //set border
    contentPane.setBorder(new EmptyBorder(5, 5, 5, 5));
    //set ContentPane
    setContentPane(contentPane);
    //set null
    contentPane.setLayout(null);

    //create object of JButton and set label on it
    JButton btnNewFrame = new JButton("New");
    //add actionListener
    btnNewFrame.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
      public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent arg0) {
        //call the object of NewWindow and set visible true
        NewWindow frame = new NewWindow();
        frame.setVisible(true);
        //set default close operation
        setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.DISPOSE_ON_CLOSE);
      }
    });
    //set font of the Button
    btnNewFrame.setFont(new Font("Microsoft YaHei UI", Font.BOLD, 12));
    //set bounds of the Button
    btnNewFrame.setBounds(180, 195, 78, 25);
    //add Button into contentPane
    contentPane.add(btnNewFrame);

    //set Label in the frame
    JLabel lblThisIsOld = new JLabel("This is Old Frame");
    //set foreground color to the label
    lblThisIsOld.setForeground(Color.BLUE);
    //set font of that label
    lblThisIsOld.setFont(new Font("Times New Roman", Font.BOLD | Font.ITALIC, 24));
    //set bound of the label
    lblThisIsOld.setBounds(127, 82, 239, 39);
    //add label to the contentPane
    contentPane.add(lblThisIsOld);
  }
}

//import statement

import java.awt.Color;

import java.awt.EventQueue;

import java.awt.Font;

import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;

import java.awt.event.ActionListener;

import javax.swing.JButton;

import javax.swing.JFrame;

import javax.swing.JLabel;

import javax.swing.JPanel;

import javax.swing.border.EmptyBorder;

//create class and extend with JFrame

public class OldWindow extends JFrame {

//declare variable

private JPanel contentPane;

/**

* Launch the application.

//main method

public static void main(String[] args) {

/* It posts an event (Runnable)at the end of Swings event list and is

processed after all other GUI events are processed.*/

EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable() {

public void run() {

//try - catch block

try {

//Create object of OldWindow

OldWindow frame = new OldWindow();

//set frame visible true

frame.setVisible(true);

} catch (Exception e) {

e.printStackTrace();

}

});

}

/**

* Create the frame.

public OldWindow() //constructor

{

//set frame title

setTitle("Old Frame");

//set default close operation

setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.DISPOSE_ON_CLOSE);

//set bounds of the frame

setBounds(100, 100, 450, 300);

//create object of JPanel

contentPane = new JPanel();

//set border

contentPane.setBorder(new EmptyBorder(5, 5, 5, 5));

//set ContentPane

setContentPane(contentPane);

//set null

contentPane.setLayout(null);

//create object of JButton and set label on it

JButton btnNewFrame = new JButton("New");

//add actionListener

btnNewFrame.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {

public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent arg0) {

//call the object of NewWindow and set visible true

NewWindow frame = new NewWindow();

frame.setVisible(true);

//set default close operation

setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.DISPOSE_ON_CLOSE);

}

});

//set font of the Button

btnNewFrame.setFont(new Font("Microsoft YaHei UI", Font.BOLD, 12));

//set bounds of the Button

btnNewFrame.setBounds(180, 195, 78, 25);

//add Button into contentPane

contentPane.add(btnNewFrame);

//set Label in the frame

JLabel lblThisIsOld = new JLabel("This is Old Frame");

//set foreground color to the label

lblThisIsOld.setForeground(Color.BLUE);

//set font of that label

lblThisIsOld.setFont(new Font("Times New Roman", Font.BOLD | Font.ITALIC, 24));

//set bound of the label

lblThisIsOld.setBounds(127, 82, 239, 39);

//add label to the contentPane

contentPane.add(lblThisIsOld);

}

And the for the new Window


//import statement
import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.EventQueue;
import java.awt.Font;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.border.EmptyBorder;

//create class and extend with JFrame
public class NewWindow extends JFrame {
  //declare variable
  private JPanel contentPane;
  /**
   * Launch the application.
   */
  //main method
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    /* It posts an event (Runnable)at the end of Swings event list and is
    processed after all other GUI events are processed.*/
    EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
      public void run() {
        //try - catch block
        try {
          //Create object of NewWindow
          NewWindow frame = new NewWindow();
          //set frame visible true
          frame.setVisible(true);
        } catch (Exception e) {
          e.printStackTrace();
        }
      }
    });
  }

  /**
   * Create the frame.
   */
  public NewWindow() //constructor
  {
    //set frame title
    setTitle("New Frame");
    //set default close operation
    setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.DISPOSE_ON_CLOSE);
    //set bounds of the frame
    setBounds(100, 100, 450, 300);

    //create object of JPanel
    contentPane = new JPanel();
    //set border
    contentPane.setBorder(new EmptyBorder(5, 5, 5, 5));
    //set ContentPane
    setContentPane(contentPane);
    //set null
    contentPane.setLayout(null);

    //label in the frame
    JLabel lblWelcome = new JLabel("Welcome this is New Frame");
    //set fore ground color to the label
    lblWelcome.setForeground(Color.RED);
    //set font to the label
    lblWelcome.setFont(new Font("Times New Roman", Font.BOLD | Font.ITALIC, 24));
    //set bounds of the label
    lblWelcome.setBounds(75, 100, 294, 32);
    //add label to the contentPane 
    contentPane.add(lblWelcome);
  }
}

//import statement

import java.awt.Color;

import java.awt.EventQueue;

import java.awt.Font;

import javax.swing.JFrame;

import javax.swing.JLabel;

import javax.swing.JPanel;

import javax.swing.border.EmptyBorder;

//create class and extend with JFrame

public class NewWindow extends JFrame {

//declare variable

private JPanel contentPane;

/**

* Launch the application.

//main method

public static void main(String[] args) {

/* It posts an event (Runnable)at the end of Swings event list and is

processed after all other GUI events are processed.*/

EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable() {

public void run() {

//try - catch block

try {

//Create object of NewWindow

NewWindow frame = new NewWindow();

//set frame visible true

frame.setVisible(true);

} catch (Exception e) {

e.printStackTrace();

}

});

}

/**

* Create the frame.

public NewWindow() //constructor

{

//set frame title

setTitle("New Frame");

//set default close operation

setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.DISPOSE_ON_CLOSE);

//set bounds of the frame

setBounds(100, 100, 450, 300);

//create object of JPanel

contentPane = new JPanel();

//set border

contentPane.setBorder(new EmptyBorder(5, 5, 5, 5));

//set ContentPane

setContentPane(contentPane);

//set null

contentPane.setLayout(null);

//label in the frame

JLabel lblWelcome = new JLabel("Welcome this is New Frame");

//set fore ground color to the label

lblWelcome.setForeground(Color.RED);

//set font to the label

lblWelcome.setFont(new Font("Times New Roman", Font.BOLD | Font.ITALIC, 24));

//set bounds of the label

lblWelcome.setBounds(75, 100, 294, 32);

//add label to the contentPane

contentPane.add(lblWelcome);

}

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