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Edit the value of a JComboBox entry without triggering a selection change [duplicate]

I need your suggestions and guidence on following task.
I have a frame which has two JComboBoxes supposed they are named combo1 and combo2, a JTable and other components.
At initial stage when frame is visible with above component. The combo1 combobox is filled with some values but no value is selected at initial stage, the combo2 combobox is disabled and the table is empty.
I have added an actionListener on combo1 as well as combo2. There are two types of values in combo1 suppose those values are type1 and type2.
Condition 1:
When we selects value type1 from Combo1 the actionListener method is called of combo1 which invokes a method which combo2 remains disabled and adds some rows to table related to selected value type1 from combo1.
Condition 2:
when we selects value type2 from combo1 the actionListener method is called of combo1 which invokes a method who makes combo2 filled with some values related to type2 and gets enabled but no value is selected from combo2 and table also should remain empty until we selects any value from combo2.
table at every addition of value to combo2 the action listener method of combo2 is gets fired. In actionListener method of combo2 which gets combo2 selected value but here there is no selected value of combo2 which leads to a NullPointerException.
So what should I do that the action listner method of combo2 will not be get executed after addition of an values to combo2.

You could remove the action listener before you add the new elements, and add it back once you're done . Swing is single threaded so there is no need to worry about other threads needing to fire the listener.
Your listener could probably also check if something is selected and take appropriate action if not. Better than getting a NPE.

What i do instead of adding and removing action listeners i have a boolean variable in my action listeners that is true if it has to allow the action through or false if it has to block it.
I then set it to false when i do some changes that will fire off the action listener
JComboBox test = new JComboBox();
test.addActionListener(new ActionListener()
{
#Override
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)
{
if(testActionListenerActive)
{
//runn your stuff here
}
}
});
//then when i want to update something where i want to ignore all action evetns:
testActionListenerActive = false;
//do stuff here like add
SwingUtilities.invokeLater(() -> testActionListenerActive = false);
//and now it is back enabled again
//The reason behind the invoke later is so that if any event was popped onto the awt queue
//it will not be processed and only events that where inserted after the enable
//event will get processed.

try this:
indicatorComboBox = new JComboBox() {
/**
* Do not fire if set by program.
*/
protected void fireActionEvent() {
// if the mouse made the selection -> the comboBox has focus
if(this.hasFocus())
super.fireActionEvent();
}
};

although its late, a better alternative would be to disabled the combobox to be modified prior to being modified. by doing so, you prevent firing events of the modified combobox, when for example, you use methods likes removeAllItems() or addItem()
String orderByOptions[] = {"smallest","highest","longest"};
JComboBox<String> jcomboBox_orderByOption1 = new JComboBox<String(orderByOptions);
JComboBox<String> jcomboBox_orderByOption2 = new JComboBox<String(orderByOptions);
JComboBox<String> jcomboBox_orderByOption3 = new JComboBox<String(orderByOptions);
jcomboBox_orderByOption1.addItemListener(new ItemListener()
{
public void itemStateChanged(ItemEvent itemEvent)
{
int eventID = itemEvent.getStateChange();
if (eventID == ItemEvent.SELECTED)
{
Object selectedItem = jcomboBox_orderByOption1.getSelectedItem();
jcomboBox_orderByOption2.setEnabled(false);
jcomboBox_orderByOption2.removeAllItems();
for (String item: string_orderByOptions)
{
if (!item.equals(selectedItem))
{
jcomboBox_orderByOption2.addItem(item);
}
}
jcomboBox_orderByOption2.setEnabled(true);
}
}
});
jcomboBox_orderByOption2.addItemListener(new ItemListener()
{
public void itemStateChanged(ItemEvent itemEvent)
{
int eventID = itemEvent.getStateChange();
if (eventID == ItemEvent.SELECTED)
{
Object selectedItem1 = jcomboBox_orderByOption1.getSelectedItem();
Object selectedItem2 = jcomboBox_orderByOption2.getSelectedItem();
jcomboBox_orderByOption3.setEnabled(false);
jcomboBox_orderByOption3.removeAllItems();
for (String item: string_orderByOptions)
{
if (!item.equals(selectedItem1) && !item.equals(selectedItem2))
{
jcomboBox_orderByOption3.addItem(item);
}
}
jcomboBox_orderByOption3.setEnabled(true);
}
}
});

The cleaner way is to use lambda expressions like this:
do(comboBox, () -> comboBox.setSelectedItem("Item Name"));
For the above to work, you need the following method defined somewhere:
public static void do(final JComboBox<String> component, final Runnable f) {
final ActionListener[] actionListeners = component.getActionListeners();
for (final ActionListener listener : actionListeners)
component.removeActionListener(listener);
try {
f.run();
} finally {
for (final ActionListener listener : actionListeners)
component.addActionListener(listener);
}
}

This works:
/** Implements a Combo Box with special setters to set selected item or
* index without firing action listener. */
public class MyComboBox extends JComboBox {
/** Constructs a ComboBox for the given array of items. */
public MyComboBox(String[] items) {
super(items);
}
/** Flag indicating that item was set by program. */
private boolean isSetByProgram;
/** Do not fire if set by program. */
protected void fireActionEvent() {
if (isSetByProgram)
return;
super.fireActionEvent();
}
/** Sets selected Object item without firing Action Event. */
public void setSelection(Object item) {
isSetByProgram = true;
setSelectedItem(item);
isSetByProgram = false;
}
/** Sets selected index without firing Action Event. */
public void setSelection(int index) {
isSetByProgram = true;
setSelectedIndex(index);
isSetByProgram = false;
}
}
Note: You can't just override setSelectedItem(...) or setSelectedIndex(...) because these are also used internally when items are actually selected by user keyboard or mouse actions, when you do not want to inhibit firing the listeners.

To determine whether or not to perform various methods in actionListener interface methods (actionPerformed() blocks of code) use setActionCommand() on source components (combo1 or combo2).
For your example, before adding elements to combo2, call setActionCommand("doNothing") and guard your comboBoxActionPerformed() method.
Here's a compilable example that uses this principle to have one combo set another combo's selected index while also displaying a String in a JTextField. By using setActionCommand() and guarding the comboActionPerformed() block of code, the JTextField will cycle through each word in the wordBank. If the comboActionPerformed() method was not guarded or if the actionCommand String was not changed, 2 actionEvents will trigger and the textField will skip words.
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import javax.swing.BoxLayout;
import javax.swing.JComboBox;
import javax.swing.JComponent;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.JTextField;
/** #author PianoKiddo */
public class CoolCombos extends JPanel {
JComboBox<String> candyCombo;
JComboBox<String> flavorCombo;
JTextField field;
String[] wordBank;
int i = 0;
CoolCombos() {
super();
initComponents();
addComponentsToPanel();
}
private void initComponents() {
initCombos();
initTextField();
}
private void initCombos() {
ActionListener comboListener = new ActionListener() {
#Override
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
comboActionPerformed(e);
}
};
String[] candyList = {"Sourpatch", "Skittles"};
String[] flavorList = {"Watermelon", "Original"};
candyCombo = new JComboBox<>(candyList);
candyCombo.addActionListener(comboListener);
flavorCombo = new JComboBox<>(flavorList);
flavorCombo.addActionListener(comboListener);
}
private void initTextField() {
wordBank = new String[]{"Which", "Do", "You", "Like", "Better?"};
field = new JTextField("xxxxx");
field.setEditable(false);
field.setText(wordBank[i]);
}
private void addComponentsToPanel() {
this.setLayout(new BoxLayout(this, BoxLayout.Y_AXIS));
this.add(candyCombo);
this.add(flavorCombo);
this.add(field);
}
public void comboActionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
String command = e.getActionCommand();
if (!command.equals("doNothing")) {
JComboBox combo = (JComboBox) e.getSource();
if (combo.equals(candyCombo)) {
setOtherComboIndex(candyCombo, flavorCombo); }
else {
setOtherComboIndex(flavorCombo, candyCombo); }
displayText(); //replace here for toDo() code
}
}
private void setOtherComboIndex(JComboBox combo, JComboBox otherCombo) {
String command = otherCombo.getActionCommand();
otherCombo.setActionCommand("doNothing"); //comment this line to skip words.
otherCombo.setSelectedIndex(combo.getSelectedIndex());
otherCombo.setActionCommand(command);
}
private void displayText() {
i++;
String word;
if (i > 4) { i = 0; }
word = wordBank[i];
field.setText(word);
this.repaint();
}
/**
* Create the GUI and show it. For thread safety,
* this method should be invoked from the
* event-dispatching thread.
*/
private static void createAndShowGUI() {
//Create and set up the window.
JFrame frame = new JFrame("CoolCombos");
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
//Create and set up the content pane.
JComponent newContentPane = new CoolCombos();
newContentPane.setOpaque(true); //content panes must be opaque
frame.setContentPane(newContentPane);
//Display the window.
frame.pack();
frame.setMinimumSize(frame.getSize());
frame.setVisible(true);
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
//Schedule a job for the event-dispatching thread:
//creating and showing this application's GUI.
javax.swing.SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
createAndShowGUI();
}
});
}
}

I kind of went the stupid simple route with this issue for my program since I am new to programming.
I changed the action listeners to have a counter if statement:
if(stopActionlistenersFromFiringOnLoad != 0){//action performed ;}
Then at the end of the java program creation, I added 1 to the counter:
topActionlistenersFromFiringOnLoad += 1;

To avoid that addItem method fire events is better to use an DefaultComboBoxModel in the JComboBox to add data. Also, if you invoke a model.addElement(), an event is fired, so, you can add all the elements to the model and later use JComboBox.setModel(model). In this way, if you add elements to the model, events are not fired because you have not link the JComboBox with the model. Then, I show you an example.
private void rellenarArrendatarioComboBox(ArrayList<Arrendatario> arrendatarios) {
DefaultComboBoxModel model = new DefaultComboBoxModel();
model.addElement(new Arrendatario(" -- Seleccione un arrendatario --"));
for (Arrendatario arrendatario : arrendatarios) {
model.addElement(arrendatario);
}
ArrendatarioComboBox.setModel(model);
}
First, we create the model, add all elements to the model (events are not fired because you have not link the JComboBox with the model), we link the model with the JComboBox using ArrendatarioComboBox.setModel(model). After linking, events are fired.

How to make JTable with JComboBox respond only on double click instead of single click

So this is the first time I tried using CellEditors for my JTable to embed JComboBox and JSpinner. Everything works fine as expected wherein I can see the values in JComboBox model as well as JSpinner's model values.
However, I noticed that it always displays the JComboBox's values as soon as I make a single click on JTable's column that has the JComboBox.
It's not very user friendly because I think the user would prefer to double click on a JTable's column to get the dropdown box values and select values from it instead of a single click.
How can I change the JComboBox's behaviour to only display itself on double click?
I thought I'd apply a MouseListener to the JComboBox but I don't know what to do next.
Here's what I've written so far.
public class ScheduleDayCellEditor extends DefaultCellEditor{
private JComboBox jcmbDays;
private JTable jtblSchedule;
private DefaultComboBoxModel model;
public ScheduleDayCellEditor(){
super(new JComboBox());
model = new DefaultComboBoxModel(new String[]{"Mon","Tue","Wed","Thu","Fri"});
jcmbDays = new JComboBox(model);
jcmbDays.setEditable(false);
jcmbDays.setSelectedIndex(-1);
jcmbDays.addMouseListener(new MouseListener() {
#Override
public void mouseClicked(MouseEvent e) {
if(e.getClickCount() == 2){
//? ? ? ?
}
}
#Override
public void mousePressed(MouseEvent e) {
}
#Override
public void mouseReleased(MouseEvent e) {
}
#Override
public void mouseEntered(MouseEvent e) {
}
#Override
public void mouseExited(MouseEvent e) {
}
});
}
#Override
public Component getTableCellEditorComponent(JTable table, Object value, boolean isSelected, int row, int column) {
return jcmbDays;
}
#Override
public Object getCellEditorValue() {
return jcmbDays.getSelectedItem(); //To change body of generated methods, choose Tools | Templates.
}
Here's a screenshot for additional description.
I'd appreciate any help.
Thank you.

If you don't need to extend DefaultCellEditor for some other reason, you can simply invoke its setClickCountToStart() method with a count of 2.
DefaultCellEditor editor = new DefaultCellEditor(jcmbDays);
editor.setClickCountToStart(2);
jcmbColumn.setCellEditor(editor);

Simply override isCellEditable by applying further criterion:
#Override
public boolean isCellEditable(EventObject aAnEvent) {
boolean cellEditable = super.isCellEditable(aAnEvent);
if (cellEditable && aAnEvent instanceof MouseEvent) {
cellEditable = ((MouseEvent) aAnEvent).getClickCount() == 2;
}
return cellEditable;
}

Button actionlistener calls another action listener in the same class

I have a submit button (and an action listener) which checks if the number inserted into a Futoshiki puzzle is legal (checking a 2D array for duplications etc)
In another method I have the actual grid with an action listener that gets the numbers and inserts them into the 2D array.
JButton acction listener
JButton isRight = new JButton("Check My Answer");
isRight.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
#Override
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
if (!(puzzle.isLegal())) {
JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(FutoshikiFrame.this,
puzzle.getProblems(),
"You made a mistake!",
JOptionPane.INFORMATION_MESSAGE);
} else {
JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(FutoshikiFrame.this,
"YOU WIN!",
"YES THATS FINE",
JOptionPane.INFORMATION_MESSAGE);
}
puzzle.printProblems.clear();
}
});
Grid action listener
public void keyReleased(KeyEvent e) {
String getInsertedValue = Emptysquare.getText();
int getInsertedIntValue = Integer.parseInt(getInsertedValue);
setSquareValue(r, c, getInsertedIntValue);
System.out.print(getSquareValue(r, c));
}
Is there a way I can access the keyReleased action listener from the JButton so it basically "submits" the contents of the grid and then checks if its legal?

Sure, just either keep a reference to that action listener and call the keyReleased method with a null value, or refactor out the content of keyReleased to an own method and call this method from both listeners.

Although 2 other methods were given, here is an additional way you could go about it, but I'm not sure which would be best to use.
public class YourClass {
JButton isRight;
public YourClass() {
this.isRight = new JButton();
this.isRight.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
YourClass.this.isRight.getKeyListeners()[0].keyReleased(null);
//Other action related code
}
});
isRight.addKeyListener(new KeyListener() {
public void keyReleased(KeyEvent e) {
//Key related code
}
//Other required key listener methods
});
}
}

Disable button in Java until all fields filled

I'm new to Java and developing a small project. I'm making a program where the user has to register themselves. I have 3 different tabs on my Tabbed Pane. I want to be able to disable the next button on the first pane making it impossible for the user to continue to pane 2 unless all the text fields on pane 1 have been filled. I have been Searching online and found various examples but none of them would work in run time.
I am using Netbeans.
private void txtFirstNameActionPerformed(java.awt.event.ActionEvent evt) {
if(txtFirstName.getText().trim().length() > 0)
btnNext1.setEnabled(true);
else
btnNext1.setEnabled(false);
}

Create a List of all the text fields on your pane:
List<JTextField> list = new ArrayList<>();
Add all your text fields to that list.
Then, create a universal DocumentListener that listens for text change events, and every time a text update happens, scan through all your text fields to see if they have all been filled:
DocumentListener listener = new DocumentListener() {
#Override
public void removeUpdate(DocumentEvent e) { changedUpdate(e); }
#Override
public void insertUpdate(DocumentEvent e) { changedUpdate(e); }
#Override
public void changedUpdate(DocumentEvent e) {
boolean canEnable = true;
for (JTextField tf : list) {
if (tf.getText().isEmpty()) {
canEnable = false;
}
}
btnNext1.setEnabled(canEnable);
}
};
And add that listener to every text field you have in the list:
for (JTextField tf : list) {
tf.getDocument().addDocumentListener(piecesListener);
}

Event handling in Java (JTree + JButton)

private void createEvents()
{
menuFileExit.addActionListener(new ActionListener()
{
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent arg0)
{
System.exit(0);
}
});
////// Events on tree selection
jtStoryViewer.addTreeSelectionListener(new TreeSelectionListener()
{
public void valueChanged(TreeSelectionEvent arg0)
{
DefaultMutableTreeNode selection = (DefaultMutableTreeNode) jtStoryViewer.getLastSelectedPathComponent();
Object nodeObject = selection.getUserObject();
////// Checks if selected node is a String (only story title is a string)
if(selection.getUserObject().getClass().getName() == "java.lang.String" )
{
tfTitle.setText(nodeObject.toString());
////// Action listener for Change Button
btnChange.addActionListener(new ActionListener()
{
////// Title text swap
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent arg0)
{
selection.setUserObject(tfTitle.getText());
((DefaultTreeModel)jtStoryViewer.getModel()).nodeChanged(selection);
}
});
}
///// checks if the object is a chapter object
if(selection.getUserObject().getClass().getName() == "ISW.common.Chapter")
{
Chapter chapter = (Chapter) selection.getUserObject();
tfTitle.setText(chapter.toString());
////// Action listener for Change Button
btnChange.addActionListener(new ActionListener()
{
////// Title text swap
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent arg0)
{
chapter.setTitle(tfTitle.getText());
((DefaultTreeModel)jtStoryViewer.getModel()).nodeChanged(selection);
}
});
}
}
});
}
I am using JTree to display and modify some objects. I added a TreeSelectionListener to get the object data on selection. For now I want to be able to change the title of an object, it works fine on first selection on the tree , I change the value in the text box and the "Change" button works just fine, but when I move on to next objects, the change button also modifies the value of all previously selected objects.
I guess it is caused due to my improper usage of the ActionListeners but I can't tell for sure and at this point I'm stuck.
Will be grateful for any hints.

Don't keep adding an ActionListener to the btnChange JButton within the TreeSelectionListener#valueChanged method.
This will cause the button to call EVERY ActionListener you have previously
Instead, give the btnChange a single ActionListener, when clicked, can act on the currently selected node (by checking the JTree it self). You could have the TreeSelectionListener#valueChanged method enable or disable the btnChange based on the validity of the selection
Also, if(selection.getUserObject().getClass().getName() == "ISW.common.Chapter") isn't how String comparison is done in Java, instead you should use something more like if("ISW.common.Chapter".equals(selection.getUserObject().getClass().getName()))