msmolyak
asked on
Disabling group of components
I have a group of Swing components (text fileds, combo boxes, buttons) which have to be disabled when certain event takes place. I wonder whether there is more elegant way of doing that than calling setEnabled(false) on each of them individually.
mjenkins
What you could do is to create an Action class that disables or enables all of the components at once, Your ActionAdapter would take care of it for you. I believe that this is discauused in the Javadocs for Action.class
Just in case that wasn't clear, I meant:
com.sun.java.swing.Action
com.sun.java.swing.Action
If the components to enable/disable are in the same container, you could replace it by a
more clever one:
public class CleverPanel extends JPanel { // for example
//...
public void setEnabled(boolean b) {
for (int i=0; i< getComponentCount(); i++) {
Component c = getComponent(i);
c.setEnabled(b);
}
return;
}
}
Like this, you only need to invoke setEnabled() on the container to have all the components
inside enabled/disabled.
more clever one:
public class CleverPanel extends JPanel { // for example
//...
public void setEnabled(boolean b) {
for (int i=0; i< getComponentCount(); i++) {
Component c = getComponent(i);
c.setEnabled(b);
}
return;
}
}
Like this, you only need to invoke setEnabled() on the container to have all the components
inside enabled/disabled.
ASKER
mjenkings, thank you for the proposed answer. Your solution is a good one, however I decided to go with the fontaine's proposal for the following reasons:
1. All the components I need to enable/disable are indeed inside a panel.
2. fontaine's soultion does not assume that the components are ActionListeners or that they can be creates based on an Action.
3. In this solution code changes are less substantial, they affect only the panel and not any of the subcomponents.
4. Enabling and disabling is easier, I simply have to call setEnabled() on a container rather than deal with events (the event which causes the components to be enabled/disabled is not an ActionEvent but a list selection event).
Bertrand, the points are yours!
1. All the components I need to enable/disable are indeed inside a panel.
2. fontaine's soultion does not assume that the components are ActionListeners or that they can be creates based on an Action.
3. In this solution code changes are less substantial, they affect only the panel and not any of the subcomponents.
4. Enabling and disabling is easier, I simply have to call setEnabled() on a container rather than deal with events (the event which causes the components to be enabled/disabled is not an ActionEvent but a list selection event).
Bertrand, the points are yours!
ASKER
Sorry, mjenkins, I misspelled you name.
Michael
Michael
another crude and wild idea is to use the glasspane feature of swing is disable a group of components.
The idea is to set your own custom glass pane and position and resize it to exactly take the
place of the container. (when ever the Jpanel which needs to be disabled changes its size and position), move the glass pane to that place and resize it too.
http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/ui/swing/rootpane.html#glasspane
see this question of week from developer.javasoft.com site
Question: How do you ignore user input in a Swing application?
The user has just pressed a button in an application and the operation will
take some time. You want to put the application in a busy state. How do you
get the application to ignore user input?
Answer:
setEnabled(false) on the frame should work. Unfortunately if you call
Frame.setEnabled(false), the interface goes blank. To block input without
hiding the interface, try using a "glasspane". You can set the glasspane visible
to intercept events before they reach the underlying components.
Check out:
http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/ui/swing/rootpane.html#glasspane
which has examples of glasspane usage.
see this example
http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/ui/swing/example-swing/GlassPaneDemo.java
Thanx
vijay
The idea is to set your own custom glass pane and position and resize it to exactly take the
place of the container. (when ever the Jpanel which needs to be disabled changes its size and position), move the glass pane to that place and resize it too.
http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/ui/swing/rootpane.html#glasspane
see this question of week from developer.javasoft.com site
Question: How do you ignore user input in a Swing application?
The user has just pressed a button in an application and the operation will
take some time. You want to put the application in a busy state. How do you
get the application to ignore user input?
Answer:
setEnabled(false) on the frame should work. Unfortunately if you call
Frame.setEnabled(false), the interface goes blank. To block input without
hiding the interface, try using a "glasspane". You can set the glasspane visible
to intercept events before they reach the underlying components.
Check out:
http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/ui/swing/rootpane.html#glasspane
which has examples of glasspane usage.
see this example
http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/ui/swing/example-swing/GlassPaneDemo.java
Thanx
vijay
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ASKER
Vijay, It is an interesting suggestions to use a glasspane. However the disadvantages of that approach are (correct me if I am wrong): it looks like it is more difficult to implement and (the main one) even though it does shield the components from the mouse events it does not make them look disabled. That the glasspane does not make it obvious to the user that this button and this text field are disabled. If you disable the components, the changes in background and font color do make it obvious.