A well-developed user interface will make it clear which components in a dialog are available to receive input from the user. The AWT Component class has a setEnabled method for altering the sensitivity, so when you extend the Component class and provide your own paint method, you should provide two different appearances, for the enabled and disabled states. The following example makes the text in a disabled Component appear as a shadow of its enabled form:

 public void paint(Graphics screen) {    ...    Color textColor;    if (isEnabled()) textColor = getForeground();    else textColor = getBackground().darker();    screen.setColor(textColor);    screen.drawString(yourText, ..., ...);    ...}