Develop Reference

How will I be able to compare two button presses from a choice of three?

I have 3 buttons
b1
b2
b3
I want to now have these buttons be pressed in turns.
So turn one I press and turn 2 another person presses.
So after turn two, I will compare the names of the buttons.
b1.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
public void actionPerformed( ActionEvent event ) {
b1.setEnabled(false);
if (!b1.isEnabled() && !b2.isEnabled()) {
//computeWinner(b1.getText(), b2.getText());
} else if(!b1.isEnabled() && !b3.isEnabled()) {
//computeWinner(b1.getText(), b2.getText());
}
}
});
This was what I thought would work, but there are many things wrong with this,
First, since I disable the buttons the second user always has one less option. and second the if statements do not seem to work? how should I compare the
JButton b3 = new JButton ("hello"); <- hello lable of the buttons?
EDIT:
I was able to successfully compare the two buttons. Now my only problem is that for the second player one of the buttons are disabled(how can I capture the first button press and the second without disabling them?). And that after the comparison I don't know how to reset the board to go again. (for a set number of loops.)
Thank you for the help!

The following code will print the label of the button which has been pressed. I hope, you should be able to proceed from here. Feel free to let me know if you face any further issue.
ActionListener actionListener = new ActionListener(){
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent actionEvent) {
System.out.println(actionEvent.getActionCommand());
}
};

There are several options.
Store the buttons in a map<Integer, String>. the integer would be a count for keeping track of pushes. The string would be the actionCommand of the button pressed.
Store the button actionCommands in a list or array.
In either of the above you can provide appropriate logic to compare the buttons and then reset the arrays or map and count.
Note: The actionCommand defaults to the button label unless it explicitly set.

Changing ActionListener to append StringBuilder

Within two statements that have drastically shortened my code I need to add a statement that adds the text of a JButton to a StringBuilder. The ActionListener statement exists to disable the JButtons when clicked (a nice aesthetic), but I want to include if possible the ability to append the StringBuilder within the ActionListener as well. The following is the two parts of this code.
theModel.randomLetters();
ActionListener disableButton = new ActionListener() {
#Override
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent event) {
if (!(event.getSource() instanceof JButton)) {
return;
}
theModel.currentWord.append((JButton)event.getSource());
((JButton)event.getSource()).setEnabled(false);
}
};
for (int i = 0; i < 16; i++) {
JButton dice = new JButton(theModel.letters.get(i));
dice.addActionListener(disableButton);
boggleGrid.add(dice);
}
The .addActionListener(disableButton) adds the above ActionListener to each button when it is produced by the for loop. However,
theModel.currentWord.append((JButton)event.getSource());
is what I thought would properly append the StringBuilder "currentWord" with whatever value the clicked button holds (hence "((JButton)event.getSource())"). There are no errors per say but I have written separate lines of code in my main class to test whether there are any changes to the StringBuilder when any buttons are clicked. There isn't.
Where and what do I need to do to properly add the value of the clicked JButton to currentWord?

Using (JButton)event.getSource() will cause the StringBuilder to invoke the objects toString method. This isn't what you want, instead, either use the JButton's text property or the ActionEvent's actionCommand property, for example...
theModel.currentWord.append(((JButton)event.getSource()).getText());
or
theModel.currentWord.append(event.getActionCommand());
instead
Unless you specify the JButton's actionCommand yourself, it will use the buttons text as the actionCommand

Comparing components via setName() .

I am coding an image puzzle game and one part of the code is to compare the pieces the user has selected to the pieces of the correct image.
Each image piece is already added to a JButton as an ImageIcon.
An identifier is required to differentiate each image piece apart and also for comparision.
I am setting a setName() for each JButton created as the identifier.
The comparison starts when the user releases the mouse after he drags the puzzle pieces from the original 3x3 grid where the shuffled pieces are to the other 3x grid for matching.
I have problems removing the error from the comparison if statement.
I got the comparison idea from this SO thread - link
private JButton[] button = new JButton[9];
private JButton[] waa = new JButton[9];
private String id;
private int cc;
private String id2;
private int cc2;
// setName for each of the 9 buttons in the original 3x3 grid being created
// which stores the shuffled puzzle pieces
for(int a=0; a<9; a++){
button[a] = new JButton(new ImageIcon());
id += Integer.toString(++cc);
button[a].setName(id);
}
// setName for each of the 9 buttons in the other 3x3 grid
// where the images will be dragged to by the user
for(int b=0; b<9; b++){
waa[b] = new JButton();
id2 += Integer.toString(++cc2);
waa[b].setName(id2);
}
// check if puzzle pieces are matched in the correct place
// compare name of original 'button' array button with the name of 'waa' array buttons
button[a].addMouseListener(new MouseAdapter(){
public void mouseReleased(MouseEvent m){
if(m.getbutton().getName().equals (waa.getName())){
}
else{
JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null,"Wrong! Try Again.");
}
}
}

In your mouseReleased event m.getButton() is returning the mouse button that was clicked. You'll want to do something more like this that will get you closer:
if (m.getComponent().getName().equals(waa.getName())) {
m.getComponent() returns the Component object (your JButton) that the event was fired from. From there you can do the comparison with the getName approach you are using.
There's an additional issue in that your waa variable is an array. I'm not sure how you want to compare them, whether running through the arrays and making sure the index and names match, but that's an additional issue you need to look into.

JButton uses an ActionListener to trigger notifications back to your program to indicate when it's been triggered. This allows the button to respond to different types of event, including the mouse, keyboard and program triggers.
As apart of the action API, you can supply an action command for each button. See JButton#setActionCommand
Basically you would integrate it in a simular way to your mouse listener...
public void actio Performed(ActionEvent evt) {
if (command.equals(evt.getActionCommand()) {...}
}
Depending on your requirements, it might even be easier to use the Action API
The problem you are actually having is waa is an array, therefore, it doesn't have a getName method. I'm also unclear as to why you have two arrays of buttons?

Array of buttons, make only one button change its text when clicked

I have an array I fill with buttons and I want an individual button to change its text when clicked.
for (int i = 0; i<4; i++)
{
button[i] = new JButton ("Add");
button[i].addActionListener(this);
box[i] = new JComboBox();
foodOptions.add(box[i]);
foodOptions.add(button[i]);
}
public void actionPerformed (ActionEvent e)
{
button[this].setText("I've been clicked!");
}
The current doesn't work because of incompatible types, what format is appropriate?

Yes, it makes no sense to pass an object, this, into an array index which expects an int, not your GUI object, so I'm not sure what you were trying to achieve with this.
Just get a reference to the JButton that's been clicked from the ActionEvent's getSource() method:
JButton btn = (JButton)e.getSource();
btn.setText("I've been clicked");
Edit:
Also you should avoid using this as your ActionListener since this means that you're likely having your GUI class implement an ActionListener which is asking the poor class to be too many things, to do too much. You're much better off either using anonymous inner classes or else even better use AbstractActions.

How to tell which item fired a mouse listener

HI all,
I'm trying to write a simple star rating component. I'm fairly new to the Java language and I'm not sure if what i want to accomplish can even be done in Java. Is it possible for me to add a JLabel inside an array of JLabel, and each JLabel in the array will have a mouse event listener. Now is it possible to set it up so that when the mouse event fires on say Label[3] that i can get the index value of it?
Here is how I built my Panel
public Rating(Integer max,int size) {
JLabel position = new JLabel[max];
this.setLayout(new FlowLayout());
for(int i=0; i != max;i++){
position[i]=new JLabel(icons.getIcon("star-empty", size));
position[i].setOpaque(true);
position[i].addMouseListener(this);
add(position[i]);
}
}
#Override
public void mouseEntered(MouseEvent e) {
JLabel a= (JLabel) e.getComponent();
//****Have some code in here to tell me where in the position array the event came from????***
int index = ?????
}
Thoughts/Idea/Suggestions please.
Note I thought of using buttons, but it looks messy and would love to find a way with ImageIcons.
THanks.

Instead of using the same listener for each label like you did:
position[i].addMouseListener(this);
...you can create a special listener class that takes the index number, and allows you to find it later:
position[i].addMouseListener(new RatingMouseListener(i));
Each label will have a separate instance of the listener with a different index value. The code for the inner class would look like something like this:
private class RatingMouseListener extends MouseAdapter {
private final int index;
public RatingMouseListener(int index) {
this.index = index;
}
#Override
public void mouseEntered(MouseEvent e) {
System.out.println("Mouse entered for rating " + index);
}
#Override
public void mouseExited(MouseEvent e) {
System.out.println("Mouse exited for rating " + index);
}
}
Then, you just override any method in MouseAdapter.
Also, like other people said, you might want to use JButtons instead of JLabels because they have better support for action events. You can still give them icons.

You could name each JLabel according to its index using its setName method, then use the MouseEvent's getComponent method to get the originating JLabel back, use getName on it and there's your index. That would be one way, but would involve storing the index information in two places (implicitly in its placement in the array, and explicitly as the label's name), so it's pretty much begging for inconsistency to arise.
You could also search through the array for the JLabel reference you get from getComponent, but that's not so great either, especially for large arrays.

The way I usually do it is:
int i;
for (i = 0; i <max; i++)
if (position[i] == e.getcomponent())
break;
now position[i] is the label you are looking for.

Just know that JButtons can look any way you'd like. They can have ImageIcons and don't even have to look like buttons.

Why is the index important? You know how to get the component, so just loop through the array to get the index.
Note I thought of using buttons, but it looks messy and would love to find a way with ImageIcons.
How does using a button solve the problem of determining the index? However, I also agree using a button is better than a label and then you would use an ActionListener instead of a MouseListener. You can make the button look like a label by using:
button.setBorderPainted( false );
Now if you use an ActionListener you can use the setActionCommand(...) method to store the index value of the button. Then in the event you use the getActionCommand(...) method.