Modal dialog hide behind Main Frame after swich focus

Question

I have a swing application, basically, a main frame that could pop up a modal dialog. When the modal dialog is showing, if I switch to another window, like firefox. And then switch back to the swing application. The JDialog is not in front any more.

I don't want to set the dialog AlwaysOnTop to be true. because then the dialog will be on top of all windows include windows in other process.

So what should I do so that when I swich back, the modal dialog still on top?

BTW: it is a Applet, so the main frame is actually be set in this way:

private static Frame findParentFrame(Container owner){
    Container c = owner;
    while(c != null){
        if (c instanceof Frame)
            return (Frame)c;
        c = c.getParent();
    }
    return (Frame)null;
}

Answer 1

I am not sure if the modality of the dialog is the key issue here. I have tested this behaviour and the dialog always popups on the front when the app is maximised independent of it being modal.

import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import javax.swing.JApplet;
import javax.swing.SwingUtilities;
import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.Container;
import java.awt.FlowLayout;
import java.awt.Frame;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JDialog;

public class AppletTest extends JApplet
        implements ActionListener
{
    private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;
    private Frame findParentFrame()
    {
        Container c = this;
        while(c != null)
        {
            if(c instanceof Frame)
                return (Frame) c;

            c = c.getParent();
        }
        return (Frame) null;
    }
    private void createGUI()
    {
        Container content = getContentPane();
        content.setBackground(Color.white);
        content.setLayout(new FlowLayout());
        content.add(new JButton("Button 1"));
        content.add(new JButton("Button 2"));
        content.add(new JButton("Button 3"));
        JDialog d = new JDialog(findParentFrame());
        d.setModal(true);
        d.setVisible(true);
    }

    public void init()
    {
        try
        {
            SwingUtilities.invokeAndWait(new Runnable()
            {
                public void run()
                {
                    createGUI();
                }
            });
        }catch(Exception e)
        {
            System.err.println("createGUI didn't successfully complete");
        }
    }

    @Override
    public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)
    {
    }
}

Check out the example I provided. You can comment the line with d.setModal(true); and the result will be exactly the same. I would suggest for you to check your code once more or show it to us as it seems that you might have missed something there.

PS: I found on the web some other hack-like solution http://www.codeguru.com/forum/showthread.php?t=41536 I would still focus on checking your code though.

Oi & Good luck, Boro.