Thread: Help with actionListener and buttons

Ok so basically I want this program to change the text of a random JButton out of the 9 on the panel every 5 seconds (I have a timer firing with intervals of 5 seconds) to "mole" and then wait 5 seconds, and if the user doesn't click the button in the time it should change the text back to nothing. One of the problems I'm having is that putting in Thread.sleep() to make the program wait 5 seconds messes up the whole thing and for some reason it never even changes the text if the random JButton to "mole" in the first place. The other problem I'm having is that I want it to set the text to nothing and add one to the counter variable if the button clicked has "mole" as the text, but for some reason it's not working and doesn't add to counter or change the text of the JButton to nothing(even if the requirements for the if statement have been met). Any help anyone can offer to fix either of these would be very appreciated.

import javax.swing.*;
import javax.swing.Timer;
import java.util.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.awt.*;
 
public class MoleGUI implements ActionListener{
 
	JFrame field;
	JPanel panel;
	Timer t = new Timer(5000, this);
	int counter;
	ArrayList<JButton> holes;
	int randButton;
 
 
	public MoleGUI() {
		field = new JFrame("Whack-a-Mole");
		panel = new JPanel(new GridLayout(3,3));
		field.setContentPane(panel);
		field.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
 
		holes = new ArrayList<JButton>();
 
		//add and initialize 9 JButtons in the arrayList
		for(int x = 0; x < 9;x++)
			holes.add(new JButton());
 
		//add the 9 JButtons to the panel
		for(int x = 0;x < 9;x++)
			panel.add(holes.get(x));
 
		//add this as an actionListener for all 9 JButtons 
		for(int x = 0;x < 9;x++)
			holes.get(x).addActionListener(this);
 
		counter = 0;
	}
 
	public void display(){
		field.pack();
		field.setVisible(true);
		field.resize(500,500);
		t.start();
	}	
 
	public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)
	{
		if(e.getSource() == t){
			randButton = (int)((Math.random() * 8) + 1);
			holes.get(randButton).setText("Mole");				
 
		        try {Thread.sleep(1000);} catch (InterruptedException ie) { }
			holes.get(randButton).setText("");
		}
 
		if(e.getSource() == holes.get(0) && holes.get(0).getText().equals("mole")){
			counter ++;
			holes.get(0).setText("");
			System.out.println(counter);
		}
 
		if(e.getSource() == holes.get(1) && holes.get(1).getText().equals("mole")){
			counter ++;
			holes.get(1).setText("");
			System.out.println(counter);
		}
 
		if(e.getSource() == holes.get(2) && holes.get(2).getText().equals("mole")){
			counter ++;
			holes.get(2).setText("");
			System.out.println(counter);
		}
 
		if(e.getSource() == holes.get(3) && holes.get(3).getText().equals("mole")){
			counter ++;
			holes.get(3).setText("");
			System.out.println(counter);
		}
 
		if(e.getSource() == holes.get(4) && holes.get(4).getText().equals("mole")){
			counter ++;
			holes.get(4).setText("");
			System.out.println(counter);
		}
 
		if(e.getSource() == holes.get(5) && holes.get(5).getText().equals("mole")){
			counter ++;
			holes.get(5).setText("");
			System.out.println(counter);
		}
 
		if(e.getSource() == holes.get(6) && holes.get(6).getText().equals("mole")){
			counter ++;
			holes.get(6).setText("");
			System.out.println(counter);
		}
 
		if(e.getSource() == holes.get(7) && holes.get(7).getText().equals("mole")){
			counter ++;
			holes.get(7).setText("");
			System.out.println(counter);
		}
 
		if(e.getSource() == holes.get(8) && holes.get(8).getText().equals("mole")){
			counter ++;
			holes.get(8).setText("");
			System.out.println(counter);
		}
	}
}

Could you please use the correct tags for your code? Here's the syntax: [highlight=Java]//your code here[/highlight]

e.getSource() == t

First of all, don't use == with objects. Instead, use a try statement, try to cast e to a Timer, and then use the <Timer>.equals() methods.

(to class cast, simply use some code like this:

Timer source = (Timer)e.getSource();

Include this and the rest of the code for a timer within a try statement; if the source of e is a timer, you'll have no problems, but if e is not a timer, an exception will be thrown an caught, and the program will move on.)

You could do the same thing with your buttons...

if(e.getSource() == holes.get(0) && holes.get(0).getText().equals("mole")){
counter ++;
holes.get(0).setText("");
System.out.println(counter);
}

Instead of this bulky code repeated over and over, you could use a try statement and attempt to class cast e.getSource() to a JButton. Once you do this, you can check if the source's text equals "mole", and avoid repeating the same statements over and over.

As for your problems, I suggest putting in some println's in so that you can see what the program's actually doing.

Now that I think about it, I believe it would be beneficial to create separate ActionListeners for your Timer and JButtons. That way, you could avoid some of those wicked if-statements and try-catching class casts. Note that an easy way to do a unique ActionListener is like this:

Timer t = new Timer(3000, new ActionListener(){
   public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)
   {
      //what to do when Timer fires here
   }
};
/*By doing this, you create an ActionListener
right in the declaration*/

So wait, I can have two different actionListeners within the same class? (sorry I'm a bit of a noob lol) Also if you could show me an example of the way you're saying to use casting with the try statements that would be very helpful too.

EDIT: I got the 2 separate actionListeners thing (I just created a separate ButtonListener class to handle the button actions),
but I would still appreciate an example of the casting with the try statements. Thanks for the help btw

EDIT2: I added the following for the ButtonListener but it's telling me that source cannot be resolved:

try{
	JButton source = (JButton)e.getSource();
} catch (ClassCastException c){
	if(source.getText.equals("mole")){
		counter++;
		source.setText("");
		System.out.println(counter);
	}
}

I would but I'm not really sure how to do that lol. And yea I was almost sure it was ok to use == as long as I wasn't messing around with aliases or anything like that but idk.

EDIT: Oh ok I get what you're saying but yea for some reason I can't export from eclipse; it always gives me an error and then when I try to run it, it either doesn't run or it tells me it can't find the main class. I've tried specifying the main class but iddk nothing's worked lol.

it tells me it can't find the main class

Does this error mean that you have a class named: main that you are trying to execute?
For example: java main
and the java program can not find the main.class file?

Here is what I get with that command:

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]

D:\JavaDevelopment\Testing\ForumQuestions8>java main
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: main
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: main
at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(Unknown Source)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
Could not find the main class: main. Program will exit.

D:\JavaDevelopment\Testing\ForumQuestions8>

Note: Following the message in red is the name of the class that is missing: main.
What class is missing when you try executing the program?