asked on

Creating buttons and names with a for loop

Hey,

I am looking to create some buttons from an array, which I can happily do with the following code:

ImageIcon cardBack = new ImageIcon("poker-card-bg.gif");

for (int i=0; i<gameDisplay.cards.length; i++) {
contentPanel.add(new JButton("",cardBack));
}

But what I cannont work out how to do is give each one of these buttons a unqiue name so that they can be identifiyed later on. Can anyone point me in the right direction please ?

Thanks.

Mick Barry

for (int i=0; i<gameDisplay.cards.length; i++) {
contentPanel.add(new JButton("Button "+i,cardBack));
}

you might also want to keep an array of the buttons to identify directly
and also add the appropriate action listener in your loop

for (int i=0; i<gameDisplay.cards.length; i++) {
buttons[i] = new JButton("Button "+i,cardBack);
buttons[i].addActionListener(.....
contentPanel.add(buttons[i]);
}

3nigmatic

ASKER

I got three compile time errors with that:

buttons[i] = new JButton("Button "+i,cardBack);

replaced with: JButton buttons[i] = new JButton("Button "+i,cardBack);

and the other two I am uncertain about:

buttons[i] = new JButton("Button "+i,cardBack); - ']' expected
^
buttons[i].addActionListener(); - ';' expected
^

Any ideas?

Thanks.

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Mick Barry

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Manikandan Thiagarajan

I think Provide object in Add Action Listener Methhod

buttons[i].addActionListener(this);

chakra-march-04

This will work-----

ImageIcon cardBack = new ImageIcon("poker-card-bg.gif");
JButton []buttons = null;

for (int i=0; i<gameDisplay.cards.length; i++) {
buttons[i] = new JButton("Button "+i,cardBack);
buttons[i].addActionListener(this);
contentPanel.add(buttons[i]);
}

3nigmatic

ASKER

Hey,

I went with what Objects had supplied in his second comment and added an actionListener:

JButton[] buttons = new JButton[gameDisplay.cards.length];
            for (int i=0; i<gameDisplay.cards.length; i++) {
           buttons[i] = new JButton("Button "+1,cardBack);
           buttons[i].addActionListener(this);
           contentPanel.add(buttons[i]);
            }

But, I know get an error say I cannot apply an abstractbutton in my constructor.

Without the actionListener it works fine though :D

Thanks.

Dannin

full error message please

Dannin

buttons[i].addActionListener(this);

with this you have to be sure you you have defined you actionlistener and importanted the right packages.

3nigmatic

ASKER

C:\Program Files\Xinox Software\JCreatorV4\MyProjects\concentrationApp\src\concentrationApp.java:111: addActionListener(java.awt.event.ActionListener) in javax.swing.AbstractButton cannot be applied to (concentrationApp)
buttons[i].addActionListener(this);
^

I am importing the right packages and implementing the ActionListener.

Mick Barry

sounds like your class does not implement ActionListener