Where have I messed up regarding creating a Game Menu?

Question

I am trying to create a basic game menu for a game right now. I am just testing out the menu for now, and most of the options I wrote are just to test out whether the menu actually works or not. So I have a Menu class and a OptionPanel class as well.

Here is the Menu Class:

import java.awt.event.*; import javax.swing.*; import java.awt.*; public class Main extends JFrame { JPanel cardPanel; public Main(String title) { super(title); setBounds(100, 100, 800, 600); setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE); cardPanel = new JPanel(); CardLayout cl = new CardLayout(); cardPanel.setLayout(cl); OptionPanel panel1 = new OptionPanel(this); Board panel2 = new Board(); Rules panel3 = new Rules(); cardPanel.add(panel1,"1"); cardPanel.add(panel2,"2"); cardPanel.add(panel3,"3"); add(cardPanel); setVisible(true); } public static void main(String[] args) { Main w = new Main("AP Animation Demo"); } public void changePanel() { ((CardLayout)cardPanel.getLayout()).next(cardPanel); requestFocus(); } }

And here is my Option Panel class:

 import java.awt.*; import javax.swing.*; import java.awt.event.*; public class OptionPanel extends JPanel implements ActionListener { Main w; public OptionPanel(Main w) { this.w = w; JButton button = new JButton("Press me!"); button.addActionListener(this); add(button); JButton button2 = new JButton("Game rules"); button2.addActionListener(this); add(button2); } public void paintComponent(Graphics g) { super.paintComponent(g); setBackground(Color.BLACK); }// Call JPanel's paintComponent method to paint the background public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) { w.changePanel(); } }

How do I make it so when the menu pops up, I can click on one button that leads to the game, and when clicking on another button, get linked to another screen. I think it has something to do with the actionPerformed thing, so I tried adding if (e.getSource == button) and stuff like that, but it could not find any button variable. Any advice/feedback?

i'd suggest creating 1 action listener per button, each to do a specific task — z -
– z -, Commented May 18, 2013 at 22:52
If that is all the paintComponent(Graphics) does, remove it and put setBackground(Color.BLACK); in the constructor. — Andrew Thompson
– Andrew Thompson, Commented May 19, 2013 at 4:45
@user2397837 (re your other now-deleted question), it's not a problem. Since you're new here, we'll forgive a lot. Well, a bit, anyway. But questions asking for help are generally expected to show that you've put some effort into it already, and what you've tried. If you put in some debug print statements and show the output, I'll jump out of my skin in an attempt to help you out :-) Hope my comments in the other question didn't offend, that was not my intent. — paxdiablo
– paxdiablo, Commented Aug 12, 2013 at 1:55

arcy · Accepted Answer · 2013-05-19 00:14:08Z

If you want the actionPerformed() method to be able to access a button variable, then the variable has to have an instance scope (or static, less preferable almost always). Referring to it in the method as you have it written won't work because the button variable is local to the constructor.

The suggestion in the comments is to make a separate ActionListener for each button; you only need to use the if (e.getSource() == button) if the one actionPerformed() method is getting called for multiple buttons. The difference between these is a little much for a SO answer; you can get a tutorial on action listeners in the Java tutorials at Oracle.

The way you have started above suggests you are going to use the OptionPanel as a single action listener for all buttons, and therefore it needs to test which button invoked it. If instead you have a separate action listener for each button, then it knows which button invoked it and doesn't need to test.

Try looking up "anonymous inner classes" as they relate to action listeners in Java.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Where have I messed up regarding creating a Game Menu?

1 Answer 1

Comments

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

1 Answer 1

Comments

Related