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Waiting for a button to be pressed in Java Swing before moving on?

So I have this GUI
public ChangePokemonView(Controller c)
{
this.controller = c;
this.currentBattleEnvironment = currentBattleEnvironment.getInstance();
populateInactivePokemon(); //REMOVE LATER REMOVE LATER REMOVE LATER REMOVE LATER REMOVE LATER
this.pokemonList = new JList(inactivePlayerPokemon);
pokemonList.setSelectionMode(ListSelectionModel.SINGLE_SELECTION); //Only one thing can be selected at a time.
this.pokemonLabel = new JLabel("Choose your Pokemon!");
this.confirmSelection = new JButton("Confirm Selection");
this.confirmSelection.addActionListener(this);
setLayout(new BorderLayout());
setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE); //Closes GUI window when close, may need to change later
JPanel centerPanel = new JPanel(new GridLayout(3, 1));
centerPanel.add(pokemonLabel);
centerPanel.add(pokemonList);
centerPanel.add(confirmSelection);
add("Center", centerPanel);
pack();
setVisible(true);
}
That just creates a list of items and a button. When the button is clicked, it will get the selected item and return it to a controller to then process it (in that, for our project it changes the players pokemon).
*/
#Override
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent event)
{
if (event.getSource() == confirmSelection)
{
this.pokemonSelected = (String) pokemonList.getSelectedValue();
this.controller.setCurrentPokemon(this.pokemonSelected);
//JOptionPane.showConfirmDialog(null, "You pressed: "+output); //USED FOR TESTING, THIS WILL OUPUT JUST THE NAME THAT WAS SELECTED
}
}
The setCurrentPokemon has nothing really in it with the controller. I am just trying to make sure it can get the selection right now. However I am having trouble with the rest of the code waiting till the selection is made.
I thought Swing and input in general with Java should pause and wait for the input before moving on with the rest of the code. However, right now it runs opens the selection menu but then sets the selected pokemon to null in the controller. I thought about adding a while loop to kind of wait and get around this, but I feel like there is an easier way to do this built into Swing.
Is there a way so I can have the rest of my code wait until the button is selected and the action is handled?
Thanks in advance.

Use a JOptionPane. It will build the modal dialog and buttons for you. A modal dialog stops execution until it is closed.
Read the section from the Swing tutorial on How to Make Dialogs for more information and working examples.
add("Center", centerPanel);
Don't use "magic" values. The API will define the values that should be used. That is also not the way to add components to a Container. Instead you should be using:
add(centerPanel, BorderLayout.CENTER);

ActionEvent for jButton given a jRadioButton option

So basically, I'm trying to make a simple program here with GUI that let's you make a choice given two jRadioButtons as choices of which either of the two leads to a corresponding storyline in similar fashion to visual novels. The problem however is that I'm having trouble connecting the idea of a jButton to a choice from a jRadioButton.
The concept is like this: In a frame, there's a jTextArea which displays strings of texts forming a storyline which gives two options to choose from here and there as represented by two jRadioButtons which then must be executed by a jButton.
So far, the only logic I've placed inside the ActionListener for both jRadioButtons is having to disable the other once a jRadioButton is clicked while the jButton is intentionally blank. Anyone got any similar program or module he / she would like to share, at least, the logic on this one programatically speaking?

We usually use RadioButtons to choose between one of a few options and only one button can be selected at a time. To get this functionality, you need to add your buttons to a javax.swing.ButtonGroup . Here is a quick example:
//Fields declared in your main GUI class
JRadioButton option1,option2;
JButton goButton; //executes the "Story"
//Constructor code or place in init() method that constructor calls:
{
//initialize buttons and place them in your frame.
ButtonGroup buttonGroup = new javax.swing.ButtonGroup();
buttonGroup.add(option1);
buttonGroup.add(option2);
buttonGroup1.setSelected(option1.getModel(), true);
goButton.addActionListener(new java.awt.event.ActionListener() {
public void actionPerformed(java.awt.event.ActionEvent evt) {
goButtonActionPerformed(evt);
}
});
}
private void goButtonActionPerformed(java.awt.event.ActionEvent evt) {
if(option1.isSelected()) {
//place text in your text area
}
if(option2.isSelected()) {
//place different text in your text area
}
}

change JPanel after clicking on a button

I'm building simple GUI for my app. I have couple of JPanels. I want to display them depending on action that was performed by clicking on a JButton. How can I disable one JPanel and enable another one ?
Couple of details. I have a class with JFrame where I'm building starting gui. Where I have buttons and some text. Clicking on one of the buttons should change the view in this JFrame
my button definition
JButton btnStart = new JButton("Start");
btnStart.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
}
});
btnStart.setBounds(10, 11, 110, 23);
contentPane.add(btnStart);
// edit
I've found the problem. buttons were in static method

Simple as:
jframe.setContentPane(your_new_panel);
jframe.invalidate();
jframe.validate();

You may want to use CardLayout.
Or you can simple remove the oldpanel and add new panel:
contentPane.remove(oldPanel);
contentPane.add(newPanel);

First remove the jPanel and add the new jPanel. Then use validate to perform relayout.
jFrame.remove(jPanelOld);
jFrame.add(jPanelNew);
jFrame.validate();

How action a button to open a new pane in java for a GUI

I am creating a GUI in which my home page has a button labelled "Welcome to the Panel"
The point is that when you press on this button, it will navigate to a new page where I will have other functions. My only problem is that I dont know the syntax or how that when clicking a button, it will navigate to new page.

JButton btn = new JButton("Welcome to the Panel");
btn.setActionListener(new ActionListener()
{
#Override
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)
{
// Here you open the other window. You can use JFrame, JOptionPane or JDialog
}
});

button.addActionListener(new ActionListner()
{
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent ae)
{
//code to show pane
}
});

You need to register an ActionListener on your button and inside that action listener you make that panel (the page) visible.
How you do that depends on your layout, i.e. with a CardLayout you'd show the corresponding card (here's the doc). Using other layouts you might have to replace a component, e.g. if you use a BorderLayout and your content is placed in the center, replace the center component with the panel you want to show.
Note that if you're not familiar with layout managers yet, you should first have a look at those before doing dynamic changes to the ui (like navigation etc.).

Rich swing radiobutton

Developing a desktop application based on Java + Swing I faced the problem of creating a radio button which instead of text next to it, should have and image or, say, another widget like a spinner.
Clicking on the image or the spinner should select also the corresponding radioButton.
Is it possible? if so, how?

To me, the JRadioButton with icon given for constructor doesn't seem to work; it replaces the "native radio button icon" with given icon. I think to original asked wanted for radio button with icon in addition to the "radio button icon".
There has been some debate on the behaviour at Sun bug database with Bug #4177248 but no changes have been made.
Instead, one could try JRadioButtonMenuItem, even though there will probably be some non-wanted behaviour with that?
Short evaluation for both JRadioButton and JRadioButtonMenuItem:
public class IconRadioButtonEval {
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
JFrame frame = new JFrame();
JPanel panel = new JPanel();
// Use some arbitrary working URL to an icon
URL url =
new URL(
"http://mikeo.co.uk/demo/sqlspatial/Images/RSS_Icon.png");
Icon icon = new ImageIcon(url);
JRadioButton button = new JRadioButton(icon);
panel.add(new JLabel("RadioButton with icon:"));
panel.add(button);
panel.add(new JLabel("RadioButtonMenuItem with icon:"));
panel.add(new JRadioButtonMenuItem(icon));
frame.getContentPane().add(panel);
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
frame.pack();
frame.setVisible(true);
}
}
Justin's suggestion for another component next to JRadioButton with empty string should probably work well in most cases.

Well, there is a constructor for JRadioButton that takes an Icon. You can use that to make it have an icon next to it.
JRadioButton(Icon icon)
-- Creates an initially unselected radio button with the specified image but no text.
Otherwise, it is fairly easy to make the JRadioButtons text empty, and place another component next to it. Then you will need to add a Listener to that component, so that the JRadioButton gets clicked if the other component gets clicked.