Exercise: Creating the Chatclient GUI, Part 3 (Level 1)

                    In this exercise, you will enhance the GUI for a chat room application. You will complete the GUI for the ChatClient
                by adding a Choice component and two menus.

                Figure 12-1 shows the GUI design taht you will attempt to achieve.

Figure 12-1 GUI Layout fot the ChatClient Application

You will need to add three features to the existing GUI:

Add the username Choice component under the Send and Quit buttons. This component enables you to select a name that is posted with every chat line that you enter. You must alter the Send button and TextField listeners to write the username options including your full name and a few nicknames, such as Grand Poobah or Java Geek.

Add the File menu. This menu must include a Quit menu item that terminates the program when selected.

(Optional) Add the Help menu. This menu must include an About menu item that pops up simple dialog box, wich displays a comment about the program and about you, the developer.

Preparation

Before you begin, make sure that you have changed directories to:

projects/ChatRoomPrj

using the cd command in the terminal window.

cd ~/projects/ChatRoomPrj/

Task 1 - Modifying the ChatClient Program

Using a text editor, modify the ChatClient source file in the project directory. This classes must implement the GUI design in Figure 12-1 on page Lab 12-2.

Task 2 - Compiling the ChatClient Program

On the command line, use the javac command to compile the ChatClient program.

Task 3 - Running the ChatClient Program.

On the command line, use the java command to run the ChatClient program. You should see the GUI shown in Figure 12-1. If your GUI does not look exactly like the figure, then edit the code to tweak the design to match this figure.