Changing setText from multiple classes in java

Question

I'm busy with an application which runs in a JFrame (using BorderLayout), and has:

A status bar at the bottom
Fixed Buttons on the left
Menu on top (which change relating to specific function),
Buttons on the right (which change relating to specific function).

I'm setting it up that for every button on the left, a separate class file will be created for its functions and procedures. At this stage it's about 8 extra classes.

How to go about changing the values on the buttons and menu for each class, by that specific class?

One way might be to give each class a method like `public Action[] getActions()` that returns the actions appropriate to the class. On loading/changing to that functionality, call the method and add them to the tool-bar or menu. — Andrew Thompson, Apr 18 '12 at 14:21
@AndrewThompson has the correct insight; see also this related [example](http://stackoverflow.com/a/4039359/230513). — trashgod, Apr 18 '12 at 19:25

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 18 '12 at 14:16

If you're creating a separate class for each button, I would make sure that the class extends JButton. By doing this, to change the values on the buttons, you still have access to all the normal JButton methods like setText();

So hopefully your custom button classes would look something like this...

public class MyButton1 extends JButton {

    public MyButton1(String label){
        super(label);
    }

// your other methods go here
}

To create the button you would do this, which would set the button label...

MyButton1 button1 = new MyButton1("Hello");

And you can still call JButton methods if you want to change the label later, like this...

button1.setText("Goodbye");

Changing setText from multiple classes in java

1 Answers1