Game of Life Animation Java

Question

I have this Board class:

import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.Graphics;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import java.awt.event.MouseEvent;
import java.awt.event.MouseListener;

import java.util.Random;

import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.Timer;

public class Board extends JPanel implements ActionListener {
    Timer timer = new Timer(500, this);

    private static boolean[][] emptyBoard = {{false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false},
                                             {false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false},
                                             {false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false},
                                             {false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false},
                                             {false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false},
                                             {false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false},
                                             {false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false},
                                             {false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false},
                                             {false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false},
                                             {false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false}};

    private boolean[][] board;
    private boolean isActive = false;
    private int height;
    private int width;
    private int multiplier = 55;

    private JButton button1;
    private JButton button2;
    private JButton button3;

    public Board() {
        this(emptyBoard);
    }

    public Board(final boolean[][] board) {
        this.board = board;
        height = board.length;
        width = board[0].length;
        setBackground(Color.black);
        button1 = new JButton("Run");
        add(button1);
        button1.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
            public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
                isActive = !isActive;
                button1.setText(isActive ? "Pause" : "Run");
            }
        });
        button2 = new JButton("Random");
        add(button2);
        button2.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
            public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
                setBoard(randomBoard());
            }
        });
        button3 = new JButton("Clear");
        add(button3);
        button3.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
            public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
                setBoard(clearBoard());
            }
        });
        addMouseListener(new MouseListener() {
            @Override
            public void mouseClicked(MouseEvent e) {
            }

            @Override
            public void mouseEntered(MouseEvent e) {
            }

            @Override
            public void mouseExited(MouseEvent e) {         
            }

            @Override
            public void mousePressed(MouseEvent e) {
                getBoard()[e.getY() / multiplier][e.getX() / multiplier] = !getBoard()[e.getY() / multiplier][e.getX() / multiplier];
            }

            @Override
            public void mouseReleased(MouseEvent e) {       
            }
        });
        timer.start();
    }

    public int getMultiplier() {
        return multiplier;
    }

    public boolean[][] getBoard() {
        return board;
    }

    public void setBoard(boolean[][] boardToSet) {
        for (int i = 0; i < height; i++) {
            for (int j = 0; j < width; j++) {
                board[i][j] = boardToSet[i][j];
            }
        }
    }

    @Override
    public void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
        super.paintComponent(g);
        for (int i = 0; i < height; i++) {
            for (int j = 0; j < width; j++) {
                g.setColor(board[i][j] ? Color.green : Color.gray);
                g.fillRect(j * multiplier, i * multiplier, multiplier - 1, multiplier - 1);
            }
        }
        if (isActive) {
            timer.start();
        }
        else {
            timer.stop();
            repaint();
        }
    }

    public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
        board = nextGeneration();
        repaint();
    }

    public boolean[][] randomBoard() {
        Random rand = new Random();
        boolean[][] randBoard = new boolean[height][width];
        for (int i = 0; i < height; i++) {
            for (int j = 0; j < width; j++) {
                randBoard[i][j] = rand.nextBoolean();
            }
        }
        return randBoard;
    }

    public boolean[][] clearBoard() {
        boolean[][] emptyBoard = new boolean[height][width];
        for (int i = 0; i < height; i++) {
            for (int j = 0; j < width; j++) {
                emptyBoard[i][j] = false;
            }
        }
        return emptyBoard;
    }

    public int countSurrounding(int a, int b) {
        int count = 0;
        int[][] surrounding = {{a - 1, b - 1},
                               {a - 1, b    },
                               {a - 1, b + 1},
                               {a    , b - 1},
                               {a    , b + 1},
                               {a + 1, b - 1},
                               {a + 1, b    },
                               {a + 1, b + 1}};
        for (int[] i: surrounding) {
            try {
                if (board[i[0]][i[1]]) {
                    count++;
                }
            }
            catch (ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException e) {}
        }
        return count;
    }

    public boolean[][] nextGeneration() {
        boolean[][] nextBoard = new boolean[height][width];
        for (int i = 0; i < height; i++) {
            for (int j = 0; j < width; j++) {
                nextBoard[i][j] = board[i][j];
            }
        }
        for (int i = 0; i < height; i++) {
            for (int j = 0; j < width; j++) {
                if (board[i][j] && !(countSurrounding(i, j) == 2 || countSurrounding(i, j) == 3)) {
                    nextBoard[i][j] = false;
                }
                else if (!board[i][j] && countSurrounding(i, j) == 3) {
                    nextBoard[i][j] = true;
                }
            }
        }
        return nextBoard;
    }   
}

and this GameOfLife class:

import javax.swing.JFrame;

class GameOfLife {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Board boardPanel = new Board();
        JFrame frame1 = new JFrame();
        frame1.setTitle("The Game of Life");
        frame1.setSize(boardPanel.getBoard()[0].length * boardPanel.getMultiplier() + 5, boardPanel.getBoard().length * boardPanel.getMultiplier() + 27);
        frame1.setResizable(false);
        frame1.setVisible(true);
        frame1.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        frame1.add(boardPanel);
    }
}

As you can tell, it's meant to represent John Conway's Game of Life on a JFrame. It's my first project using animation and graphics, so I expect there to be a few bad practices. Could anyone provide an honest, critical code review?

Thanks

Answer 1

1. As was suggested in the comments, initialize your matrix as boolean[][] emptyBoard = new boolean[10][10], as in Java booleans will default to false.
2. Document your code: all IDEs will have some support for JavaDoc, use it.
3. Also suggested in the comments, variables should have better names; especially GUI elements (you might not realize the importance of this because in your case you have few elements, but doing this in larger applications will slowly become a royal PITA).
4. Separate logic from presentation. Don't do GUI operations and the game calculations in the same class (i.e. Board).

5. You shouldn't do this:

   for (int[] i: surrounding) {
       try {
           if (board[i[0]][i[1]]) {
               count++;
           }
       }
       catch (ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException e) {}
   }
   

   Properly defining surrounding should avoid any ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException.

6. This is mainly a personal preference, but what you have in main() (the GUI parts) I would put in one (or more) separate methods.
7. Another personal preference is using ArratList instead of arrays.