Step 1

Introduction

For the first step, you will just define preliminary versions of the FractalPanel and FractalApplet classes and write an HTML file for use with the appletviewer program.

Defining a Preliminary FractalPanel Class

The FractalPanel class extends the JPanel class. For this step, you only need to give it a constructor that sets the background color to Color.white. That is, the following statement should be the only statement in your constructor.

    setBackground(Color.white);

Defining a Preliminary FractalApplet Class

The FractalApplet class should extend the JApplete class. As is usually the case for a JApplet subclass, all of the code goes into its init() method. Your code should do the following.

Install a BorderLayout as the layout manager for the applet's content pane.
Define a FractalPanel variable named fractalPanel, which is initialized with a new FractalPanel.
Define a JPanel variable named controlPanel, which is initialized with a new JPanel.
Install a vertical BoxLayout as the layout manager for controlPanel. You make a vertical BoxLayout by using the control panel as the first parameter and BoxLayout.Y_AXIS as the second parameter for the BoxLayout constructor. Thus you need the following statement.
```
    controlPanel.setLayout(new BoxLayout(controlPanel, BoxLayout.Y_AXIS));
```
Set the preferred size of controlPanel to 80 by 300. In other words, the parameter in the setPreferredSize() message is new Dimension(80, 300).
Add controlPanel in the west side of the applet's content pane.
Add fractalPanel in the center of the applet's content pane.

Testing the Preliminary Class Definitions

Then make up an HTML page for the applet and display it with appletviewer. The HTML page should be identical to the one for the first programming assignment except for the title (Fractal Applet), the class specified in the applet tag (FractalApplet.class), and the width and height in the applet tag. For best results, the applet size should be 500 by 420.

When you display the applet with the appletviewer program, you will only see different colors where the control panel and fractal panel are installed. The control panel should be on the left side, with a default gray color. The fractal panel should be on the right with a white color as determined by its constructor. The control panel should be tall and narrow. The fractal panel should be approximately square. For comparison, look at the following demonstration applet.

Demonstration Applet