Weird actionPerformed method.

[Adam Cripps]

Working through books and tutorials, led me to believe that I can set up listeners to my widgets, and then have one actionPerformed method which will test for those. I have set up such a method, and am getting some weird behaviour. The save button opens a save JFileChooser and saves text to a file, and the open button, opens an open JFileChooser. However, the open button's JFIleChooser, doesn't read text to a window. I've even put a bit of debugging code such as:

System.out.println("We are in the open actionPefformed");

which doesn't appear when the Open button is called. I also changed the open button to a save button, which threw up an open button, despite my change in the code! There is also a Help->About window, which is called fine, but again, no

System.out.println("we are in the about actionPerformed"); 

works.

What should I be looking out for? The code runs fine, until I try and implement the open in actionPeformed to start reading text from a file. That's when I noticed the weirdness.

On to the main code chunks

import javax.swing.BoxLayout;
import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.File; 
import java.io.FileReader;
import java.io.FileWriter;
import java.io.IOException;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.JScrollPane;
import javax.swing.JTextArea;
import javax.swing.UIManager;
import javax.swing.UnsupportedLookAndFeelException;
import net.miginfocom.swing.MigLayout;
import javax.swing.JMenu; 
import javax.swing.JMenuBar;
import javax.swing.JMenuItem;
import java.awt.Component;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import javax.swing.JFileChooser;
import java.util.ListIterator; 
import java.io.BufferedWriter; 
import java.nio.charset.Charset;

public class JReport implements ActionListener{
	
	public String [] stringlist = {"number", "shapeandspace", "measures"};
	public JTextArea finaltext; 
	public static JReport jreport;
	public JNameFrame nameframe;
	public JReportFrame frame; 
	public JFileChooser openfc;
	public JFileChooser savefc;
	public JReportTabbedPane tabbedpane; 
	
	public JReport(){
		JMenuBar menubar = new JMenuBar(); 
		JMenu menu = new JMenu("File");
		menubar.add(menu);
		JMenuItem open = new JMenuItem("Open");
		open.addActionListener(this);
		JMenuItem save = new JMenuItem("Save");
		save.addActionListener(this);
		JMenuItem exit = new JMenuItem("Exit");
		exit.addActionListener(this);
		menu.add(open);
		menu.add(save);
		menu.add(exit);
		
		// A help menu to hold generic information about the application. 
		JMenu help = new JMenu("Help");
		JMenuItem about = new JMenuItem("About");
		about.addActionListener(this);
		help.add(about);
		menubar.add(help);
		
		//A frame to hold the name of the child.
		nameframe = new JNameFrame();
		//A frame to collect how the teacher rates this child. 
		JAbilityPane ability = new JAbilityPane();
		//The actual application frame
		frame = new JReportFrame();
		//A tabbed pane to hold all the curriculum subjects. 
		tabbedpane = new JReportTabbedPane(this);	
		//Set this frame to have a Miglayout - going down vertically.
		MigLayout layout = new MigLayout("wrap 1");//, debug 4000");
		//frame.setLayout(new BoxLayout(frame.getContentPane(), BoxLayout.Y_AXIS));
		frame.setLayout(layout);
		frame.add(nameframe);
		frame.add(ability);
		//This panel is to hold a text area that is collected from the tabbed panes. 
		JPanel jointpane = new JPanel();
		jointpane.setLayout(new BoxLayout(jointpane, BoxLayout.X_AXIS)); 
		JScrollPane scrollPane = new JScrollPane(JScrollPane.VERTICAL_SCROLLBAR_AS_NEEDED, JScrollPane.HORIZONTAL_SCROLLBAR_NEVER);
		finaltext = new JTextArea(16,40);
		finaltext.setPreferredSize(null);
		finaltext.setLineWrap(true);
		scrollPane.getViewport().add( finaltext );
		jointpane.add(tabbedpane);
		jointpane.add(scrollPane);
		frame.add(jointpane);
		//Add all the menus.
		frame.setJMenuBar(menubar);
		frame.pack(); 
		frame.setSize(1024,768);
		frame.setVisible(true);
		frame.setExtendedState(JFrame.MAXIMIZED_BOTH);
	}
	
	//Now we will handle the actions from the menus or the toolbar. 
	@Override
	public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
		//itemslist will hold all the textfields text. 
		StringBuffer itemslist = new StringBuffer();
		//Ok - the user wants out. 
		if (e.getActionCommand()=="Exit"){
			System.exit(0);
		}
		//The user wants to save something. 
		if (e.getActionCommand()=="Save"){
			System.out.println("Save called.");
			ListIterator textfieldsIter = tabbedpane.subjectList.listIterator(); 
			while(textfieldsIter.hasNext()){
				CurriculumSubject subject = (CurriculumSubject) textfieldsIter.next();
				itemslist.append(subject.getItems()); 	
			}
			savefc = new JFileChooser(); 
			savefc.showSaveDialog(frame); 
			if(savefc.getSelectedFile()!=null){
				File theFileToSave = savefc.getSelectedFile();  
				try {
				    BufferedWriter out = new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter(theFileToSave));
				    String outtext = itemslist.toString();
				    out.write(outtext);
				    out.close();
				} catch (IOException exc) {
					exc.printStackTrace();
				}
			}
		}      
		// The user wants to get some text. 	      
		if (e.getActionCommand()=="Open"){
			System.out.println("open called. ");
			System.out.println("We are in the open thread! ");
			openfc = new JFileChooser(); 
			int returnVal =  openfc.showOpenDialog(frame);
					if (returnVal == JFileChooser.APPROVE_OPTION) {
			            File file = openfc.getSelectedFile();
						try { 
							System.out.println("We are in the try!"); 
							FileReader reader = new FileReader(file);
							int line = reader.read();
						    System.out.println(line);
							reader.close(); 
						}
						   catch (IOException ioe){
						    	System.out.println("IO error " + ioe);
						   }
					}
		}  
		if(e.getActionCommand()=="About"){
			System.out.println("About is called. ");
			JReportAbout about = new JReportAbout();                             
		}
	}
	public static void main (String [] args){
		try {
		            // Set System L&F
		        UIManager.setLookAndFeel(
		            UIManager.getSystemLookAndFeelClassName());
		    } 
		    catch (UnsupportedLookAndFeelException e) {
		       // handle exception
		    }
		    catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
		       // handle exception
		    }
		    catch (InstantiationException e) {
		       // handle exception
		    }
		    catch (IllegalAccessException e) {
		       // handle exception
		    }
		//TODO: A toolbar with open, save, exit and help. 
		//TODO: Menu system to help exit, open and save comments. 
		
			                     
		//UIManager.setLookAndFeel(new MetalLookAndFeel()); 
		jreport = new JReport(); 	       
	}
}

[Paul Clapham]

Common beginner error: Don't use the == operator to compare the contents of two String objects. It actually compares the references, i.e. it asks whether the two Strings are the same object. But different String objects can have the same contents, so that isn't what you want. Call the equals() method of a String if you want to find whether its contents are the same as the contents of another String.

[Adam Cripps]

I did try the .equals() method, but it still didn't work - will try it again.

[Adam Cripps]

Paul Clapham wrote:Common beginner error: Don't use the == operator to compare the contents of two String objects. It actually compares the references, i.e. it asks whether the two Strings are the same object. But different String objects can have the same contents, so that isn't what you want. Call the equals() method of a String if you want to find whether its contents are the same as the contents of another String.

I still get the same results. Saved called shows up, but none of the others.

I have if in the actionPerformed with the equivalent of:

if (e.getActionCommand().equals("Save")){ ....

}

[Paul Clapham]

And when you debugged the code, what was the value of e.getActionCommand() and what code was run that you think shouldn't have been run, or vice versa?

[Adam Cripps]

@Paul Clapham, I guess I'm confused about what code has run as none of the expected code shows in the console (e.g. System.out.println("open called. ");) - however, JFileChoosers do open as does the JOptionPane which shows the about. Without System.out.println showing to console, I'm finding it difficult to debug.

[Paul Clapham]

Well, if you don't have a console then you're going to have to find some other way of debugging that code. What tool are you using which doesn't provide a view of the console?

[Adam Cripps]

I do have a console, as the Save section of the actionPerformed reports that save is called - that's why this is weird behaviour.

[Paul Clapham]

Okay. So if you have lines 1, 2, and 3 of code in sequence and your debugging shows you that line 1 is not executed but line 3 is executed, then you aren't looking at the right source code. Make sure the compiled code you are running does actually correspond to the source code you are looking at.

[Adam Cripps]

OK. This must be an eclipse weirdness, as I moved all my .java files to a temporary directory - recompiled and it's working as it should.
Thanks.