communicating/affecting another class

[Andrew Evans]

I am trying to develop a sudoku solver and have developed the GUI class and i want a seperate Button class which affects the 9x9
grid in the GUI class.
How does the communication take place is it through passing arguements via methods or some other way?

Any help would be gratefully appreciated.


GUI CLASS

import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.FlowLayout;
import java.awt.GridLayout;

import javax.swing.BorderFactory;
import javax.swing.BoxLayout;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.JTextField;
import javax.swing.border.Border;
import javax.swing.border.LineBorder;


public class Gui extends JFrame
{
	
	private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;


	/***********************************************************
	 * author Andy Evans
	 * Date 3/06/2011
	 * Title - sudoku puzzle
	 * @param args
	 **************************************************************/
	
	JButton jbtNewPuzzle = new JButton("New Puzzle");;
	JButton jbtHints     = new JButton("Hints"); 
	JButton jbtSolve     = new JButton("Solve");
	JButton jbtClear     = new JButton("Clear");
	
	final int rows = 9;
	final int columns = 9;
	
	public Gui()
	{
		
		super("Sudoku GUI");
		
		
	/**************************************************************
	*  PANEL TO HOLD  
	*  9X9 PUZZLE GRID
	*  
	****************************************************************/
		
		final JPanel GuiPanel = new JPanel(new GridLayout(rows, columns));
		final JTextField[][] subPanels = new JTextField[rows][columns];
		
		setSize(500, 500);
		setDefaultCloseOperation(EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
		add(GuiPanel);
		setLocationRelativeTo(null);
		
		Border outerBorder = BorderFactory.createLineBorder(Color.black, 2);
		Border innerBorder = BorderFactory.createLineBorder(Color.BLUE, 1);
		
		GuiPanel.setBorder(outerBorder);

	/**************************************************************
	 * 															  
	 * SETTING OUT THE ROW AND COLUMNS OF THE 9X9 GRID AND SETTING
	 * THE CELLS TO TEXTFILEDS.
	 ***************************************************************/
		
		for (int r = 0; r < rows; r++) 
		{
			for (int c = 0; c < columns; c++) 
			{
				
				subPanels[r][c] = new JTextField("");
				subPanels[r][c].setForeground(Color.blue);
				subPanels[r][c].setHorizontalAlignment(JTextField.CENTER);
				subPanels[r][c].setBorder(innerBorder);
				subPanels[r][c].setBorder(innerBorder);
				subPanels[r][c].setBackground(Color.WHITE);
				GuiPanel.add(subPanels[r][c]);
	/**************************************************************
	 * 
	 * SHADING THE 3X3 CELLS
	 * 			
	 **************************************************************/
				if ((r/3 + c/3) % 2 == 0)
				{
					  subPanels[r][c].setBackground(Color.lightGray);  
				}
				
			}
		} 
	/******************************************************************
	*  PANEL TO HOLD BUTTONS
	*  
	*****************************************************************/
		final JPanel ButtonPanel = new JPanel(new FlowLayout(FlowLayout.CENTER));
		ButtonPanel.setLayout(new BorderLayout());
		ButtonPanel.add(jbtNewPuzzle);
		ButtonPanel.add(jbtHints);
		ButtonPanel.add(jbtSolve);
		ButtonPanel.add(jbtClear);
		
		Border LineBorder 		= new LineBorder(Color.lightGray);
		ButtonPanel.setBorder(LineBorder);
		BoxLayout horizontal 	= new BoxLayout(ButtonPanel, BoxLayout.X_AXIS);
		ButtonPanel.setLayout(horizontal);
		FlowLayout flow 		= new FlowLayout();
		ButtonPanel.setLayout(flow);
		add(ButtonPanel, BorderLayout.SOUTH);
		setVisible(true);
		
	}
	

	public static void main(String[] args) 
	{
		// TODO Auto-generated method stub
		@SuppressWarnings("unused")
		Gui JPanel = new Gui();
		
	}








	

}

BUTTON CLASS

import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;



/********************************************
 * 
 * BUTTON CONTROL CLASS
 * 
 * 
 ********************************************/

public class ButtonControl extends Gui implements ActionListener 
{


	
	
	
	private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

	
	public ButtonControl()
	{
		
		
		
	}

	
	
	@Override
	public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) 
	{
		
		
		
	}
	
}

[Paul Clapham]

Andrew Evans wrote:How does the communication take place is it through passing arguements via methods?

Yes, that's how it should be done.

[Luigi Plinge]

If you've developed that GUI, adding an extra button should be a piece of cake.

[Campbell Ritchie]

If this is a GUI question, I shall move it to our GUIs forum.

[Andrew Evans]

The gui as it is does what i want it to do. My problem is trying to get the New Puzzle button to communicate with the GUI
from the ButtonControl class. Paul Clapham has said it is through arguements being passed via methods, but i'm
still not sure how it is to be done.

In the Button class do i need the public ButtonControl() part or is there another way of implementing this?

[Luigi Plinge]

Is your ButtonControl class supposed to be a separate JFrame from your main application? Why does it extend Gui?

Do you want it to instantiate a new Gui, or just to start a new game? If the former, you will have a reference to the Gui from when you instanitate it, so you can call methods on it directly. If you create your ButtonControl instance from a Gui instance, you can give your ButtonControl constructor a Gui argument, and pass "this" in the constructor call. Then have your ButtonControl store this instance as a private variable, so it can reference its "parent".