JOptionPane won't show its dialog on top of other windows

Question

I have problem currently for my swing reminder application, which able to minimize to tray on close. My problem here is, I need JOptionPane dialog to pop up on time according to what I set, but problem here is, when I minimize it, the dialog will pop up, but not in the top of windows when other application like explorer, firefox is running, anyone know how to pop up the dialog box on top of windows no matter what application is running?

Answer 1

Create an empty respectively dummy JFrame, set it always on top and use it as the component for the JOptionPane instead of null. So the JOptionPane remains always on top over all other windows of an application. You can also determine where the JOptionPane appears on screen with the location of the dummy JFrame.

JFrame frmOpt;  //dummy JFrame

private void question() {
    if (frmOpt == null) {
        frmOpt = new JFrame();
    }
    frmOpt.setVisible(true);
    frmOpt.setLocation(100, 100);
    frmOpt.setAlwaysOnTop(true);
    String[] options = {"delete", "hide", "break"};
    int response = JOptionPane.showOptionDialog(frmOpt, msg, title, JOptionPane.YES_NO_OPTION, JOptionPane.QUESTION_MESSAGE, null, options, "delete");
    if (response == JOptionPane.YES_OPTION) {
        removeRow();
    }
    frmOpt.dispose();
}

Answer 2

Old post, but I was struggling with this.

My problem was more with Javafx allowing the JOptionPane to go behind the current Java window.

Therefore I used the following which does what the original poster asked by putting the JOptionPane in front of all windows; even JAVAFX.

Firstly the old JOptionPane:

JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, "Here I am");

Now an JOptionPane that stays in front:

final JDialog dialog = new JDialog();
dialog.setAlwaysOnTop(true);    
JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(dialog, "Here I am");

And for fun here is everything in one long line:

JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(
                 ((Supplier<JDialog>) () -> {final JDialog dialog = new JDialog(); dialog.setAlwaysOnTop(true); return dialog;}).get()
                 , "Here I am");

You can make a static method some where that will return the JDialog for you and then just call it in the JOptionPane to clean up your code a bit.

Answer 3

Are you using one of the canned JOptionPanes? (Like JOptionPane.showCOnfirmDialog(...))

You may want to look at extending JDialog and making your own dialog panel, and then calling myDialog.setAlwaysOnTop(true);

Answer 4

Windows is blocking this operation since XP.

The scenario before was like: Your a tiping in some text in an editor and not recognize that another dialog is coming to front when you are tipping the text. The coming dialog gets the focus and you are tiping in the new dialog. Maybe you click enter after you are ready and do this in the wrong dialog, which is asking whether you realy want to delet your hard disk ;)

The come to front call in java is only working for java windows.

The possibibilty to notify the user of a new window is to implement a Frame, which will highlighted/flashing in the windows task bar.

Answer 5

Correction the post above..

I have resolve my problem as below:

this.setVisible(true); // show main frame
MyDialog dialog = New MyDialog(this, true); // show my custom dialog
dialog.setVisible(true);
this.setVisible(false);

it works fine for me :)

Answer 6

You might think about using a JFrame instead. It may give you a little more flexibility.

If you are using a JFrame and you want it to popup on top of the other windows use:

myFrame.setVisible(true);
myFrame.setState(Frame.NORMAL);

The setState will show the window to the user if it was in minimized state previously.