JMenuItem ActionListener help

[Stubert]

Hi there just a quick question, if I have multiple JMenuItems do I need to create an inner class ActionListener for each and every JMenuItem I create? Or is there a more efficient way of doing it?

I know I could just use event.getSource and check it all in one big ActionListener, but I've been informed that this is bad pracitce and should be done using inner classes.

Just wondering if there were any other ways of achieving this?

Thanks,

Stuart

[sukatoa]

do I need to create an inner class ActionListener for each and every JMenuItem I create?

Yep... you can..... and it is a good practice... but it consumes more lines of code.....

See the Sun's Java tutorials for more details about it.....

regards,
sukatoa

[JosAH]

Hi there just a quick question, if I have multiple JMenuItems do I need to create an inner class ActionListener for each and every JMenuItem I create? Or is there a more efficient way of doing it?

I know I could just use event.getSource and check it all in one big ActionListener, but I've been informed that this is bad pracitce and should be done using inner classes.

Just wondering if there were any other ways of achieving this?

Thanks,

Stuart

Or, alternatively create an Action object for a JMenuItem. It fully populates and
decorates a JMenuItem and handles whatever needs to be done when the JMenuItem
is pressed.

Going the getSource() route ends up in a silly sequence of if-statements and you'll
end up with much more code at the end. Better create a little class for your item:
one class per item; it's easier to maintain than just one big method with a bunch
of if-statements in it. The little Action classes don't even need to be inner classes.

kind regards,

Jos

[r035198x]

... also ask aunt Google about the Command pattern.

[Stubert]

Thanks for the replies, at first I was using a stupid amount of if statements in one actionPerformed method and it was just too messy to understand, hence the first post. I'm going to look up the Command pattern now and I'll get back to you guys.

Thanks again,

Stuart