JMenuItem enable

[huguette santos]

I have several JMenuItems with associated actions.
First, actions are disabled and so are the menu items.
When the status of the actions changes and they become enabled, the menu items are still disabled.
How can I force a JMenuItem to check if its action is enabled or not, update itself and displays right ?

[Nathan Pruett]

Hmmm... Take a look at the example code below and see if it works...

import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import java.awt.*;
 
public class ActionHandler extends JFrame {
    
    private JTextArea ta;
    private JMenuItem mi;
    private Action action;
    
    public ActionHandler() {
        super( "ActionHandler" );
        JMenuBar mb = new JMenuBar();
        JMenu menu = new JMenu( "Menu" );
        JMenuItem exit = new JMenuItem( "Exit" );
        action = new SomeAction( "SomeAction" );
        action.setEnabled( false );
        mi = new JMenuItem( action );
        menu.add( mi );
        menu.add( exit );
        mb.add( menu );
        setJMenuBar( mb );
        ta = new JTextArea();
        JScrollPane scroll = new JScrollPane( ta );
        getContentPane().add( scroll, BorderLayout.CENTER );
        JPanel p = new JPanel();
        JButton activate = new JButton( "Activate" );
        activate.addActionListener( new ActionListener() {
            public void actionPerformed( ActionEvent evt ) {
                action.setEnabled( true );
            }
        } );
        p.add( activate );
        getContentPane().add( p, BorderLayout.SOUTH );
    }
    
    public static void main( String[] arg ) {
        JFrame f = new ActionHandler();
        f.setDefaultCloseOperation( EXIT_ON_CLOSE );
        f.setSize( 300, 300 );
        f.show();
    }
    
    private class SomeAction extends AbstractAction {
        public SomeAction( String name ) {
            super( name );
        }
        
        public SomeAction( String name, Icon icon ) {
            super( name, icon );
        }
        
        public void actionPerformed( ActionEvent evt ) {
            ta.append( "SomeAction called.\n" );
        }
    }
}

[huguette santos]

thanks for your answer.
By looking at your code I understand that calling Action.setEnabled() affects also the JMenuItem.
Im my code I assumed that JMenuItem invokes Action.isEnabled before JMenuItem is drawn ... and that is not true.
Now I added a MenuListener to my menu that checks if the actions are enabled/disabled and sets the JMenuItems.
It seems to work, but I wonder if the MenuListener is always invoked before the Menu is drawn ?