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How to Add text to JTextArea

Im creating a programme using java. I want the user to enter some text, then push the button so the text entered shows in the label. However, I have 2 problems. First, the text are isn´t displaying when I execute the app. Second, I don´t know how to allow the user to type in the area. Im new in java so that´s why Im asking. Here is the code. Thank you.
import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
class Boton extends JFrame implements ActionListener {
JButton boton;
JTextArea textArea = new JTextArea();
JLabel etiqueta = new JLabel();
public Boton() {
setLayout(null);
boton = new JButton("Escribir");
boton.setBounds(100, 150, 100, 30);
boton.addActionListener(this);
add(boton);
}
#Override
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
if (e.getSource() == boton) {
try {
String texto = textArea.getText();
etiqueta.setText(texto);
Thread.sleep(3000);
System.exit(0);
} catch (Exception excep) {
System.exit(0);
}
}
}
}
public class Main{
public static void main(String[] ar) {
Boton boton1 =new Boton();
boton1.setBounds(0,0,450,350);
boton1.setVisible(true);
boton1.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
}
}

Problems:
You never add the JTextArea into your GUI, and if it doesn't show, a user cannot directly interact with it.
You are calling Thread.sleep on the Swing event thread, and this will put the entire application to sleep, meaning the text that you added will not show.
Other issues include use of null layouts and setBounds -- avoid doing this.
Solutions:
Set the JTextArea's column and row properties so that it sizes well.
Since your JTextArea's text is going into a JLabel, a component that only allows a single line of text, I wonder if you should be using a JTextArea at all. Perhaps a JTextField would work better since it allows user input but only one line of text.
Add the JTextArea to a JScrollPane (its viewport actually) and add that to your GUI. Then the user can interact directly with it. This is most easily done by passing the JTextArea into a JScrollPane's constructor.
Get rid of the Thread.sleep and instead, if you want to use a delay, use a Swing Timer. check out the tutorial here
For example:
import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.FlowLayout;
import java.awt.Window;
import java.awt.event.KeyEvent;
import javax.swing.*;
public class Main2 {
public static void main(String[] args) {
// create GUI in a thread-safe manner
SwingUtilities.invokeLater(() -> createAndShowGui());
}
private static void createAndShowGui() {
BotonExample mainPanel = new BotonExample();
JFrame frame = new JFrame("GUI");
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.DISPOSE_ON_CLOSE);
frame.add(mainPanel);
frame.pack();
frame.setLocationByPlatform(true);
frame.setVisible(true);
}
}
class BotonExample extends JPanel {
private JLabel etiqueta = new JLabel(" ");
private JButton boton = new JButton("Escribir");
// jtext area rows and column properties
private int rows = 5;
private int columns = 30;
private JTextArea textArea = new JTextArea(rows, columns);
public BotonExample() {
// alt-e will activate button
boton.setMnemonic(KeyEvent.VK_E);
boton.addActionListener(e -> {
boton.setEnabled(false); // prevent button from re-activating
String text = textArea.getText();
etiqueta.setText(text);
// delay for timer
int delay = 3000;
Timer timer = new Timer(delay, e2 -> {
// get current window and dispose ofit
Window window = SwingUtilities.getWindowAncestor(boton);
window.dispose();
});
timer.setRepeats(false);
timer.start(); // start timer
});
// create JPanels to add to GUI
JPanel topPanel = new JPanel(new FlowLayout(FlowLayout.LEADING, 5, 5));
topPanel.add(new JLabel("Etiqueta:"));
topPanel.add(etiqueta);
JPanel bottomPanel = new JPanel();
bottomPanel.add(boton);
JScrollPane scrollPane = new JScrollPane(textArea);
// use layout manager and add components
setLayout(new BorderLayout());
add(topPanel, BorderLayout.PAGE_START);
add(scrollPane, BorderLayout.CENTER);
add(bottomPanel, BorderLayout.PAGE_END);
}
}

textarea.setText("Text"); // this will insert text into the text area
textarea.setVisable(true); // this will display the text area so you can type in it
textarea.setSize(500,500); // set size of the textarea so it actually shows
The user should be able to type in the TA when it is displayed and just do a getText to pull the text

How to display one Jframe at a time? [duplicate]

I'm trying to make a little game that will first show the player a simple login screen where they can enter their name (I will need it later to store their game state info), let them pick a difficulty level etc, and will only show the main game screen once the player has clicked the play button. I'd also like to allow the player to navigate to a (hopefully for them rather large) trophy collection, likewise in what will appear to them to be a new screen.
So far I have a main game window with a grid layout and a game in it that works (Yay for me!). Now I want to add the above functionality.
How do I go about doing this? I don't think I want to go the multiple JFrame route as I only want one icon visible in the taskbar at a time (or would setting their visibility to false effect the icon too?) Do I instead make and destroy layouts or panels or something like that?
What are my options? How can I control what content is being displayed? Especially given my newbie skills?

A simple modal dialog such as a JDialog should work well here. The main GUI which will likely be a JFrame can be invisible when the dialog is called, and then set to visible (assuming that the log-on was successful) once the dialog completes. If the dialog is modal, you'll know exactly when the user has closed the dialog as the code will continue right after the line where you call setVisible(true) on the dialog. Note that the GUI held by a JDialog can be every bit as complex and rich as that held by a JFrame.
Another option is to use one GUI/JFrame but swap views (JPanels) in the main GUI via a CardLayout. This could work quite well and is easy to implement. Check out the CardLayout tutorial for more.
Oh, and welcome to stackoverflow.com!

Here is an example of a Login Dialog as #HovercraftFullOfEels suggested.
Username: stackoverflow Password: stackoverflow
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.util.Arrays;
import javax.swing.*;
public class TestFrame extends JFrame {
private PassWordDialog passDialog;
public TestFrame() {
passDialog = new PassWordDialog(this, true);
passDialog.setVisible(true);
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
JFrame frame = new TestFrame();
frame.getContentPane().setBackground(Color.BLACK);
frame.setTitle("Logged In");
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
frame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
frame.setExtendedState(JFrame.MAXIMIZED_BOTH);
}
});
}
}
class PassWordDialog extends JDialog {
private final JLabel jlblUsername = new JLabel("Username");
private final JLabel jlblPassword = new JLabel("Password");
private final JTextField jtfUsername = new JTextField(15);
private final JPasswordField jpfPassword = new JPasswordField();
private final JButton jbtOk = new JButton("Login");
private final JButton jbtCancel = new JButton("Cancel");
private final JLabel jlblStatus = new JLabel(" ");
public PassWordDialog() {
this(null, true);
}
public PassWordDialog(final JFrame parent, boolean modal) {
super(parent, modal);
JPanel p3 = new JPanel(new GridLayout(2, 1));
p3.add(jlblUsername);
p3.add(jlblPassword);
JPanel p4 = new JPanel(new GridLayout(2, 1));
p4.add(jtfUsername);
p4.add(jpfPassword);
JPanel p1 = new JPanel();
p1.add(p3);
p1.add(p4);
JPanel p2 = new JPanel();
p2.add(jbtOk);
p2.add(jbtCancel);
JPanel p5 = new JPanel(new BorderLayout());
p5.add(p2, BorderLayout.CENTER);
p5.add(jlblStatus, BorderLayout.NORTH);
jlblStatus.setForeground(Color.RED);
jlblStatus.setHorizontalAlignment(SwingConstants.CENTER);
setLayout(new BorderLayout());
add(p1, BorderLayout.CENTER);
add(p5, BorderLayout.SOUTH);
pack();
setLocationRelativeTo(null);
setDefaultCloseOperation(DISPOSE_ON_CLOSE);
addWindowListener(new WindowAdapter() {
#Override
public void windowClosing(WindowEvent e) {
System.exit(0);
}
});
jbtOk.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
#Override
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
if (Arrays.equals("stackoverflow".toCharArray(), jpfPassword.getPassword())
&& "stackoverflow".equals(jtfUsername.getText())) {
parent.setVisible(true);
setVisible(false);
} else {
jlblStatus.setText("Invalid username or password");
}
}
});
jbtCancel.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
#Override
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
setVisible(false);
parent.dispose();
System.exit(0);
}
});
}
}

I suggest you insert the following code:
JFrame f = new JFrame();
JTextField text = new JTextField(15); //the 15 sets the size of the text field
JPanel p = new JPanel();
JButton b = new JButton("Login");
f.add(p); //so you can add more stuff to the JFrame
f.setSize(250,150);
f.setVisible(true);
f.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
Insert that when you want to add the stuff in. Next we will add all the stuff to the JPanel:
p.add(text);
p.add(b);
Now we add the ActionListeners to make the JButtons to work:
b.addActionListener(this);
public void actionPerforemed(ActionEvent e)
{
//Get the text of the JTextField
String TEXT = text.getText();
}
Don't forget to import the following if you haven't already:
import java.awt.event*;
import java.awt.*; //Just in case we need it
import java.x.swing.*;
I hope everything i said makes sense, because sometimes i don't (especially when I'm talking coding/Java) All the importing (if you didn't know) goes at the top of your code.

Instead of adding the game directly to JFrame, you can add your content to JPanel (let's call it GamePanel) and add this panel to the frame. Do the same thing for login screen: add all content to JPanel (LoginPanel) and add it to frame. When your game will start, you should do the following:
Add LoginPanel to frame
Get user input and load it's details
Add GamePanel and destroy LoginPanel (since it will be quite fast to re-create new one, so you don't need to keep it memory).

using listeners with both list and button

Very new to Java, but I am slowly picking my way through things. So please be kind. I understand most things I've tried so far, and built a version of the following that uses console output, but now I'm trying to make a GUI. I tried the netbeans GUI maker, but it created so much new code that when I tried to pick through it, I got lost. I'm much better at learning by piecing new things together myself, not having an IDE generate a ton of code and then attempt to find where I want to work.
I am trying to build an window that has a list with three choices on the left side, a button in the middle that confirms your choice, and an answer output on the right. Once the button is pressed, the input from the list is read and is converted into a corresponding answer. As of right now, all I get is "We recommend... null" after selecting an option in the list. The button appears to do nothing at the moment.
I have used tutorials, hacked up others' code from online, and referenced a few books, but I'm stuck.
Here is what I have:
package diffguidegui;
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import javax.swing.*;
import javax.swing.event.*;
public class DiffGuideGUI extends JPanel implements ListSelectionListener {
private JList resultsTabList;
private DefaultListModel listModel;
private static final String recommendString = "Recommend a Option";
private JButton recommendButton;
private String recommendOutput;
final JLabel output = new JLabel("We recommend..." + recommendOutput);
//build list
public DiffGuideGUI () {
super(new BorderLayout());
listModel = new DefaultListModel();
listModel.addElement("A");
listModel.addElement("B");
//create the list and put it in the scroll pane
resultsTabList = new JList(listModel);
resultsTabList.setSelectionMode(ListSelectionModel.SINGLE_SELECTION);
resultsTabList.setSelectedIndex(0);
//listener for user input
resultsTabList.addListSelectionListener(this);
resultsTabList.setVisibleRowCount(2);
JScrollPane listScrollPane = new JScrollPane(resultsTabList);
//build the button at the bottom to fire overall behavior
recommendButton = new JButton(recommendString);
recommendButton.setActionCommand(recommendString);
recommendButton.addActionListener(new RecommendListener());
//create a panel that uses Boxlayout for the button
JPanel buttonPane = new JPanel();
buttonPane.setLayout(new BoxLayout(buttonPane, BoxLayout.LINE_AXIS));
buttonPane.add(recommendButton);
//create a panel that uses Boxlayout for the label
JPanel outputPane = new JPanel();
outputPane.setLayout(new BoxLayout(outputPane, BoxLayout.LINE_AXIS));
outputPane.add(output);
add(listScrollPane, BorderLayout.WEST);
add(buttonPane, BorderLayout.CENTER);
add(outputPane, BorderLayout.EAST);
}
//build listener class
class RecommendListener implements ActionListener {
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
//build in logic for choice made here
String resultsTabChoice;
resultsTabChoice = (String)resultsTabList.getSelectedValue();
if( resultsTabChoice.equals("A")) {
recommendOutput = "One";}
else {recommendOutput = "Two";}
}
}
public void valueChanged(ListSelectionEvent e) {
if(e.getValueIsAdjusting() == false) {
if(resultsTabList.getSelectedIndex() == -1) {
recommendButton.setEnabled(false);
} else {
recommendButton.setEnabled(true);
}
}
}
//Create GUI and show it
private static void createAndShowGUI() {
JFrame frame = new JFrame("Recommend Window");
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
//create and set up content pane
JComponent newContentPane = new DiffGuideGUI();
newContentPane.setOpaque(true);
frame.setContentPane(newContentPane);
//display the window
frame.pack();
frame.setVisible(true);
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
javax.swing.SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
createAndShowGUI();
}
});
}
}

The button appears to do nothing at the moment.
It does something. It calculates the value for your recommendOutput varable. But you never output this value.
try the following:
//build listener class
class RecommendListener implements ActionListener {
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
//build in logic for choice made here
String resultsTabChoice;
resultsTabChoice = (String)resultsTabList.getSelectedValue();
if( resultsTabChoice.equals("A")) {
recommendOutput = "One";}
else {recommendOutput = "Two";}
System.out.println(recommendOutput); // <-###################
}
}
This should print the value to stdout
To put the value into your label try this instead:
output.setText(recommendOutput);

where do you set the text for the JLabel? It says "We recommend NULL" because recommenedOutput is null when the object is created. I dont see
output.setText("We recommend "+value) anywhere. You probably need output.invalidate() also. Try putting setText(String text)/invalidate() in the RecommendListener.actionPerformed() method.
output.setText("We recommend A");
output.invalidate();

Putting multiple JPanels inside a JTabbed pane

I've looked around a while and also played around trying to add multiple panels to a JTabbedPane.
My question is: Is it possible to add the same Jpanel to multiple TabbedPanes. Everything way that I tried, it doesn't seem to work correctly. This is how it it works.
public MainGUI() {
JMenuBar menuBar = new JMenuBar();
setJMenuBar(menuBar);
JTabbedPane tabbedPane = new JTabbedPane(JTabbedPane.TOP);
getContentPane().add(tabbedPane, BorderLayout.CENTER);
JEditorPane instructionalEditorPane = new JEditorPane();
tabbedPane.addTab("Instructional", instructionalEditorPane);
JPanel codePanel = new JPanel();
JPanel drawPanel = new JPanel();
JSplitPane splitPane = new JSplitPane(JSplitPane.HORIZONTAL_SPLIT, codePanel, drawPanel);
splitPane.setResizeWeight(0.75);
tabbedPane.addTab("Code Panel", splitPane);
JEditorPane unifiedInstPane = new JEditorPane();
JPanel unifiedCodePanel = new JPanel();
JPanel unifiedDrawPanel = new JPanel();
JSplitPane unifiedSplitPane = new JSplitPane(JSplitPane.HORIZONTAL_SPLIT, unifiedCodePanel, unifiedDrawPanel);
unifiedSplitPane.setResizeWeight(0.75);
JSplitPane unifiedPanel = new JSplitPane(JSplitPane.VERTICAL_SPLIT,unifiedInstPane, unifiedSplitPane);
unifiedPanel.setResizeWeight(0.40);
tabbedPane.addTab("Unified Tab", unifiedPanel);
}
What I would like to do is just add the instructionalEditorPane and the splitPane to multiple tabbedPanes but when I do I loose the original Individual tabbedPanes. If I have to I can do it this way but I would then have to write to both the unifiedInstPane & the instructionalEditorPane to keep them updated. I would also have to do this for the 2 splitPanes which have the codePanel and drawPanels embedded. This will make it harder to keep all the panels in sync.
Any suggestions?

"Is it possible to add the same Jpanel to multiple TabbedPanes." -- no. You can only add a component to one container at a time. Your JPanels should share models but use unique components. The model will likely be a non-GUI class of your creation.
For example, here's a very simplistic rendering of my recommendations:
import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import javax.swing.*;
import javax.swing.text.BadLocationException;
import javax.swing.text.PlainDocument;
public class MainGui2 extends JPanel {
private static final int TAB_COUNT = 3;
private JTabbedPane tabbedPane = new JTabbedPane();
private PlainDocument doc = new PlainDocument();
private Action btnAction = new ButtonAction("Button");
public MainGui2() {
for (int i = 0; i < TAB_COUNT; i++) {
tabbedPane.add("Tab " + (i + 1), createPanel(doc, btnAction));
}
setLayout(new BorderLayout());
add(tabbedPane);
}
private JPanel createPanel(PlainDocument doc, Action action) {
JTextArea textArea = new JTextArea(doc);
textArea.setColumns(40);
textArea.setRows(20);
JPanel panel = new JPanel();
panel.add(new JScrollPane(textArea));
panel.add(new JButton(action));
return panel;
}
private class ButtonAction extends AbstractAction {
public ButtonAction(String title) {
super(title);
}
#Override
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent evt) {
try {
String text = "Button Pressed!\n";
doc.insertString(doc.getLength(), text, null);
} catch (BadLocationException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
private static void createAndShowGui() {
JFrame frame = new JFrame("MainGui2");
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
frame.getContentPane().add(new MainGui2());
frame.pack();
frame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
frame.setVisible(true);
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
createAndShowGui();
}
});
}
}
Better would be to create a formal model class that gets injected into each view, each tabbed pane's individual panes.
Edit
You state in comment:
Yes I can fix that by making calls to the instances but then I'm back to my original problem of having to make calls to each instance to affect a change in all the panel. Say for example I have a drawing panel and I need to call repaint(), I would have to make a call to 2 different instances to get both tabbedPanes to update. Is there any way around this?
Yes, the solution is to use an MVC, or model-view-control, structure. Your model holds your overall program logic, the views are what the user sees, and the control interacts between the two.
Consider having your model notify either the control or the views that its been changed, and then this stimulates a repaint an all observer views.

Does Container.getComponents() return references to the original components?

I'm using Container.getComponents() to get an array of Components stored inside the Container. I'm then modifying one of these Components (which happens to be a JLabel), but the changes are not showing on the GUI.
So I'm thinking maybe the method creates new instances of each Component which prevents me from making changes to the original component?
Here's my code:
Component[] components = source.getComponents();
if(components.length >= 2) {
if(components[1] instanceof JLabel) {
JLabel htmlArea = (JLabel) components[1];
htmlArea.setText("<html>new changes here</html>");
htmlArea.revalidate();
}
}

It is either another problem outside of the code, or you are doing this from the wrong thread.
Any changes on Swing components should be done in the event dispatch thread. Often is it most easy to surround the changing code with EventQueue.invokeLater(...) (or SwingUtilities.invokeLater, this is the same).
And make sure your component is actually visible on the screen.

There is no need to revalidate() or repaint() anything (unless you are doing something really strange)!
Where is your SSCCE that demonstrates your problem???
It works fine for me:
import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.util.*;
public class TabbedPaneLabel extends JFrame
{
JTabbedPane tabbedPane;
public TabbedPaneLabel()
{
tabbedPane = new JTabbedPane();
add(tabbedPane);
tabbedPane.addTab("First", createPanel("<html>label with text</html>"));
tabbedPane.addTab("Second", createPanel("another label"));
JButton remove = new JButton("Change Label on first tab");
add(remove, BorderLayout.SOUTH);
remove.addActionListener( new ActionListener()
{
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)
{
Component[] components = tabbedPane.getComponents();
JPanel panel = (JPanel)components[0];
JLabel label = (JLabel)panel.getComponent(0);
String date = new Date().toString();
label.setText("<html>" + date + "</html>");
}
});
}
private JPanel createPanel(String text)
{
JPanel panel = new JPanel();
panel.add( new JLabel(text) );
return panel;
}
public static void main(String args[])
{
TabbedPaneLabel frame = new TabbedPaneLabel();
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation( EXIT_ON_CLOSE );
frame.setSize(300, 200);
frame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
frame.setVisible(true);
}
}