I have been using the code around line 111 here as a reference https://github.com/clj-commons/seesaw/blob/master/examples/gaidica/src/gaidica/core.clj as well as this code https://github.com/vascoferreira25/seesaw-gui-application/blob/master/src/seesaw_gui_application/core.clj and also the core seesaw docs here http://clj-commons.org/seesaw/ but none of it has helped much. I know I shouldn't get caught up in formatting before I even have anything working but I can't help it...

:center "Login Here"

I'm also newish to clj and seesaw, but maybe this is of help? https://docs.oracle.com/javase%2Ftutorial%2F/uiswing/components/label.html I'm also confused by the code, you want to display both the text "Class Reg" and "Login here"? I'm confused as to how they should position to each other. Perhaps post a screenshot of what it looks like and what you want it to look like. e: oh, I understand, in the border-panel one label is supposed at the top and one in the middle (no clue what "middle" means when there's only two elements). Well, as dave said both texts will need to be written as (labels as you have to override their h-text properties.

@U05092LD5Since I am learning, this last iteration I shared had "Login here" outside of a widget because I wanted to see if it could print without one in this case. It does print, but with no formatting. With a widget around it such as a label, it will print but still I struggle to format it. Additionally something not shown here is actually that I was initially trying to do 3 lines of text, basically a title in large font "Class-Reg" with a 'subtitle' underneath it just like "Welcome to the app", and then the "Login here" in the center panel below (because I wanted to see if I could use a vertical panel inside of a border-panel. The code looks like the following (in my mind) lol -> but this does not compile and gives me lots of errors

Exception in thread "AWT-EventQueue-0" java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: class seesaw.core.proxy$javax.swing.JPanel$Tag$fd407141 does not support the seesaw.core.proxy$javax.swing.JLabel$Tag$fd407141[,0,0,0x0,invalid,alignmentX=0.0,alignmentY=0.0,border=,flags=8388608,maximumSize=,minimumSize=,preferredSize=,defaultIcon=,disabledIcon=,horizontalAlignment=LEADING,horizontalTextPosition=CENTER,iconTextGap=4,labelFor=,text=Class-Reg,verticalAlignment=CENTER,verticalTextPosition=CENTER] option

(defn make-content []
  (border-panel
   :north (vertical-panel
           (label :text "Class-Reg" :font (_f/font :size 24) :h-text-position :center)
           (label :text "Welcome to the app" :font (_f/font :size 18) :h-text-position :center))
   :center (label "Login Here")))

Try wrapping the label in the north section in a flow panel

With :align :centre

Centering the text of the label will centre the text within the label itself, but you also need to centre the label "widget" within the space

When you're fiddling with layouts, it's sometimes handy to set the background color of a GUI component to a glaring color so you can easily see where things are and what their bounds are

I don't know if I am formatting it correctly, it is returning an error saying that the opts 'must be an even number'

(defn make-content []
  (flow-panel
   :items (vertical-panel
           :items (label :text "Class-Reg" :font (_f/font :size 24) :h-text-position :center)
           (label :text "Welcome to the app" :font (_f/font :size 18) :h-text-position :center)
           (label "Login Here" :h-text-position :center))
   :align :centre))

(ns class-reg-seesaw.core
  (:use seesaw.core)
  (:use seesaw.dev)
  (:require [ :as _io]
            [seesaw.font :as _f]))

(def make-content
  (flow-panel
   :items (vertical-panel
           (label :text "Class-Reg" 
                  :font (_f/font :size 24)
                  :h-text-position :center)
           (label :text "Welcome to the app" 
                  :font (_f/font :size 18) 
                  :h-text-position :center)
           (label "Login Here" 
                  :h-text-position :center))
   (:align :centre)))

(defn main-frame []
  (let [frame (frame
               :id :m-frame
               :title "U Class-Reg-Clj"
               :content (make-content)          *LINE24
               :minimum-size [600 :by 800]
               :on-close :exit)
        background-image (label :icon (_io/resource "field.jpg"))]
   ;(config! :m-frame :position )
   frame))

(defn -main [& args]
  (invoke-later
   (-> (main-frame)
       pack!
       show!)))

Execution error (IllegalArgumentException) at seesaw.util/check-args (util.clj:24).
opts must be a map or have an even number of entries

(def flow-panel-options default-options)

(defn flow-panel
  "Create a panel with a flow layout. Options:

    :items  List of widgets (passed through make-widget)
    :hgap   horizontal gap between widgets
    :vgap   vertical gap between widgets
    :align  :left, :right, :leading, :trailing, :center
    :align-on-baseline?

  See 
  "
  [& opts]
  (abstract-panel (FlowLayout.) opts))

The "opts must...have an even number of entries" could be this guy (label "Login Here" :h-text-position :center) which mixes the (label "foo") form with the (label :text "foo" :bar "baz") form

That definitely could be contributing... I fixed it and it is producing the same error in this case

(def make-content
  (flow-panel
   :items (vertical-panel
           (label :text "Class-Reg" 
                  :font (_f/font :size 24)
                  :h-text-position :center)
           (label :text "Welcome to the app" 
                  :font (_f/font :size 18) 
                  :h-text-position :center)
           (label :text "Login Here" 
                  :h-text-position :center))
   (:align :centre)))

(:align :centre)

also I think the vertical-panel needs an :items key and the value for that key should be a single value with all three labels, I believe

I changed it back to a defn instead of def and made the changes you suggested.

(defn make-content []
  (flow-panel
   :items (vertical-panel
           :items
           (label :text "Class-Reg"
                  :font (_f/font :size 24)
                  :h-text-position :center)
           (label :text "Welcome to the app"
                  :font (_f/font :size 18)
                  :h-text-position :center)
           (label :text "Login Here"
                  :h-text-position :center))
   :align :centre))

Exception in thread "AWT-EventQueue-0" java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Don't know how to create ISeq from: seesaw.core.proxy$javax.swing.JLabel$Tag$fd407141

OK, so when you see "Don't know how to create ISeq" you should look for places where the computer expects a sequence (like a list, vector, or seq) and it's getting something that's not sequential — in this case a seesaw Label.

I think this is because :items wants a sequence and is getting a label

this is what I meant by "the value for that key should be a single value with all three labels"

currently the value for :items is just one label, not all three, because these functions take key/value pairs for their arguments

I definitely see what you are saying, I tried wrapping them in a vector and that produces the same result...

(defn make-content []
  (flow-panel
   :items (vertical-panel
           :items [(label :text "Class-Reg"
                          :font (_f/font :size 24)
                          :h-text-position :center)
                   (label :text "Welcome to the app"
                          :font (_f/font :size 18)
                          :h-text-position :center)
                   (label :text "Login Here"
                          :h-text-position :center)])
   :align :centre))

Exception in thread "AWT-EventQueue-0" java.lang.ClassCastException: class clojure.lang.Keyword cannot be cast to class java.lang.Number (clojure.lang.Keyword is in unnamed module of loader 'app'; java.lang.Number is in module java.base of loader 'bootstrap')

those are beyond me, sorry

That's fair, thank you very much for taking the time to try and help, hopefully I will figure it out soon. I feel like I am close to being able to just use the java to do it appropriately, but I think that would be the wrong "solution" even if I could.

That's all I can see there: the call to vertical panel needs to be all in a vector

:items [(vertical-panel ...)]

(defn make-content []
  (flow-panel
   :items [(vertical-panel
            :items [(label :text "Class-Reg"
                           :font (_f/font :size 24)
                           :h-text-position :center)
                    (label :text "Welcome to the app"
                           :font (_f/font :size 18)
                           :h-text-position :center)
                    (label :text "Login Here"
                           :h-text-position :center)])]
   :align :centre))

Exception in thread "AWT-EventQueue-0" java.lang.ClassCastException: class clojure.lang.Keyword cannot be cast to class java.lang.Number (clojure.lang.Keyword is in unnamed module of loader 'app'; java.lang.Number is in module java.base of loader 'bootstrap')

I thought so too lol. It seemed so intuitive when I was first looking at it, and I feel like maybe I have a syntax error somewhere else or am misunderstanding formatting my code another way. Like for example

(defn main-frame []
  (let [frame (frame
               :id :m-frame
               :title "U Class-Reg-Clj"
               :content (make-content)
               :minimum-size [600 :by 800]
               :on-close :exit)
        background-image (label :icon (_io/resource "field.jpg"))]
   ;(config! :m-frame :position )
   frame))

Not near a computer so can't check right now. I'd suggest just selectively commenting things out until it works, the reintroduce one property/form at a time

I had some amount of success :)

(defn make-content []
  (let [content-panel
        (flow-panel
         :items [(vertical-panel
                  :items [(label :text "Class-Reg"
                                 :font (_f/font :size 24)
                                 :h-text-position :center)
                          (label :text "Welcome to the app"
                                 :font (_f/font :size 18)
                                 :h-text-position :center)
                          (label :text "Login Here"
                                 :h-text-position :center)])]
         :align :center)]
    content-panel))

You probably need to align the vertical panel in some way

I did play around with this a bit, fyi if you (:use seesaw.border) you can add :border (line-border :thickness 3 :color "#FF0000") to everything to see how big it is drawn. Together with :size [500 :by 500] added to the vertical panel I get this:

I made a good chunk of progress earlier 🙂 I have a https://github.com/TheFakeLorLyons/clj-class-reg-1 if you want to see the changes I made

The background colors for components is very helpful 😄

good luck then; getting vertical-panel to align stuff centrally looks non-trivial (i.e. require interop)

it's generally still applicable, and I think it's a good first book... depending on your experience and how you take it in, it might be beneficial to spend extra time in chapter 2 (the "fire hose" chapter).

Where did you get the version 1.13.3 though?

@U013JFLRFS8 Thank you! i'll spend some extra with with the second chapter

@U11BV7MTK i checked the releases page of the clojure website https://clojure.org/releases/downloads 1.13.3 is the latest stable release right?

Whoops, my bad. It's 1.11.3

Personally, I found it exciting at first, but quickly got overwhelmed. It was my first book on Clojure and I hadn't really worked with a lisp before or done much in the way of fp beyond simple data pipelines with map, filter, and reduce. If you get lost like I did, look for some other sources: books, podcasts, watching experienced devs code something on YouTube, doing coding problems. Then come back to Joy and give it another go

But learning clojure is definetly a good idea. 👍

@U04RG9F8UJZ Thank you, i'll keep that in mind 🙂

And yeah @U017HM6BG07 i'm planning to stick with it this time 😃

Go for it! 😄

Agree with Jason. I would personally pick another - shorter and easier- book for the start Joy of Clojure is indeed a fantastic book - when you are ready for it

I’ve heard good things about Getting Clojure (https://pragprog.com/titles/roclojure/getting-clojure/) as a good first Clojure book.

don't forget to use a REPL! 😉

> I’ve heard good things about Getting Clojure as a good first Clojure book. It's a really good book. I have a copy and bought it as a gift 3 times for friends. But I also like Programming Clojure. I think it depends a bit on experience in programming and personal preferences really.

Thank you guys i will check out Getting Clojure as well!

And oh a REPL? Is that what it's all about? 😉

@U02S4QZAH61 (babashka.process/process {:inherit true} ...)

This also works in normal Clojure