Why does part of my RichJLabel text look covered/hidden?

Question

I've been reading the Swing Hacks book and have used some of their code for the RichJLabel part. I understand what the code does, but not why some of the word is covered or looks hidden. It's not that it's not drawing all of the text because even half of the 'a' in horizontal is missing.

//imported libraries for the GUI
import javax.swing.*;
import javax.swing.border.Border;
import javax.swing.border.*;

import java.awt.Toolkit;
import java.awt.Dimension;
import java.awt.Container;
import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.*;

//Rich JLabel
import java.awt.GraphicsEnvironment;
import java.awt.Graphics2D;
import java.awt.FontMetrics;
import java.awt.RenderingHints;
import java.awt.font.*;
import javax.swing.ListSelectionModel;
import java.awt.Color; 
import java.awt.Font;


public class nameInterfaceOne
{
    //Declared components
    static JFrame frame;
    static JPanel TotalGUI, northP, southP, eastP, centerP, westP;
    static JButton buttons;



//Frame method
public nameInterfaceOne()
{       
    try {
        UIManager.setLookAndFeel("com.sun.java.swing.plaf.windows.WindowsLookAndFeel");
        }   //For a different look & feel, change the text in the speech marks

    catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {}
    catch (InstantiationException e) {}
    catch (IllegalAccessException e) {}
    catch (UnsupportedLookAndFeelException e) {}



    frame = new JFrame("Interface");
    frame.setExtendedState(frame.NORMAL);

    frame.getContentPane().add(create_Content_Pane());
    frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
    frame.setSize(500, 500); //Size of main window
    frame.setVisible(true);

    Dimension dim = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getScreenSize();

    // gets & sets frame size/location
    int fw = frame.getSize().width;
    int fh = frame.getSize().height;
    int fx = (dim.width-fw)/2;
    int fy = (dim.height-fh)/2;

    //moves the frame
    frame.setLocation(fx, fy);
}

public JPanel create_Content_Pane()
{
    TotalGUI = new JPanel();
    TotalGUI.setLayout(new BorderLayout(5,5));  //set layout for the Container Pane

    northP = new JPanel();
    northP.setBorder(new TitledBorder(new EtchedBorder(), "Label"));
    TotalGUI.add(northP, BorderLayout.NORTH);

        RichJLabel label = new RichJLabel("Horizontal", 1);
        label.setLeftShadow(1,1,Color.white);
        label.setRightShadow(1,1,Color.gray);
        label.setForeground(Color.black);
        label.setFont(label.getFont().deriveFont(20f));

    Box top = Box.createHorizontalBox();
    top.add(Box.createHorizontalStrut(10));
    top.add(label);
    top.add(Box.createHorizontalStrut(10));
    northP.add(top);


    //EAST Panel
    eastP = new JPanel();
    eastP.setBorder(new TitledBorder(new EtchedBorder(), "Boxes"));
    TotalGUI.add(eastP, BorderLayout.EAST);

    Box right = Box.createVerticalBox();
    right.add(Box.createVerticalStrut(20));
    right.add(new JLabel("EAST SIDE!"));
    eastP.add(right);

    //WEST Panel
    westP = new JPanel();
    westP.setBorder(new TitledBorder(new EtchedBorder(), "Buttons"));
    TotalGUI.add(westP, BorderLayout.WEST);

    Box left = Box.createVerticalBox();
    left.add(Box.createVerticalStrut(10));
    ButtonGroup JbuttonGroup = new ButtonGroup();
    JButton buttons;
    JbuttonGroup.add(buttons = new JButton("One"));
    buttons.setToolTipText("This is Button One");
    left.add(buttons);
    left.add(Box.createVerticalStrut(10));
    JbuttonGroup.add(buttons = new JButton("Two"));
    buttons.setToolTipText("This is Button Two");
    left.add(buttons);
    left.add(Box.createVerticalStrut(10));
    JbuttonGroup.add(buttons = new JButton("Three"));
    buttons.setToolTipText("This is Button Three");
    left.add(buttons);
    left.add(Box.createVerticalStrut(10));
    westP.add(left);


    TotalGUI.setOpaque(true);
    return(TotalGUI);
}
    //Main method calling a new object of 
public static void main(String[] args)
{
    new nameInterfaceOne();
    }
}
//RICH JLABEL CLASS
class RichJLabel extends JLabel
{
    private int tracking;
    public RichJLabel(String text, int tracking) {
        super(text);
        this.tracking = tracking;
    }

    private int left_x, left_y, right_x, right_y;
    private Color left_color, right_color;

    public void setLeftShadow(int x, int y, Color color) {
        left_x = x;
        left_y = y;
        left_color = color;
    }
    public void setRightShadow(int x, int y, Color color) {
        right_x = x;
        right_y = y;
        right_color = color;
    }

public Dimension getPreferredSize() 
{
    String text = getText();
    FontMetrics fm = this.getFontMetrics(getFont());

    int w = fm.stringWidth(text);
    w += (text.length())*tracking;
    w += left_x + right_x;
    int h = fm.getHeight();
    h += left_y + right_y;

    return new Dimension(w,h); 
}

public void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
    ((Graphics2D)g).setRenderingHint(
        RenderingHints.KEY_TEXT_ANTIALIASING,
        RenderingHints.VALUE_TEXT_ANTIALIAS_ON);
    char[] chars = getText().toCharArray();

    FontMetrics fm = this.getFontMetrics(getFont());

    int h = fm.getAscent();
    int x = 0;

    for(int i=0; i<chars.length; i++) 
    {
        char ch = chars[i];
        int w = fm.charWidth(ch) + tracking;

        g.setColor(left_color);
        g.drawString(""+chars[i],x-left_x,h-left_y);

        g.setColor(right_color);
        g.drawString(""+chars[i],x+right_x,h+right_y);

        g.setColor(this.getForeground());
        g.drawString(""+chars[i],x,h);

        x+=w;
    }

    ((Graphics2D)g).setRenderingHint(
        RenderingHints.KEY_TEXT_ANTIALIASING,
        RenderingHints.VALUE_TEXT_ANTIALIAS_DEFAULT);

} // end paintComponent()
}

Thank you in advance for any help :)

Answer 1

Empirically, the problem disappears when adding the label directly to the (default) FlowLayout of northP.

northP.add(label);

Addendum: An alternative is to override getMaximumSize(), as suggested in How to Use BoxLayout: Specifying Component Sizes.

@Override
public Dimension getMaximumSize() {
    return new Dimension(Short.MAX_VALUE, Short.MAX_VALUE);
}