Handle action events for JButton

Byron KiourtzoglouNovember 11th, 2012Last Updated: April 24th, 2013

1 670 1 minute read

This is a tutorial on how to handle action events for JButtons components in a Java Desktop Application. JButtons are very frequently used, and it is a very standard practice to use buttons for basic input operations in GUI applications.

In order to handle action events in JButton, all you have to do is:

Create a class that extends JFrame and implements ActionListener.
Create new JButtons.
Override actionPerformed method of ActionListener interface.
Use ActionEvent.getActionCommand to get which JButton was pressed.
Use add to add JButtons to the frame.

Let’s see the following code snippet:

package com.javacodegeeks.snippets.desktop;

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

import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JFrame;

public class HandleActionEventsForJButton extends JFrame implements ActionListener {

	private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

	public HandleActionEventsForJButton() {

		// set flow layout for the frame
		this.getContentPane().setLayout(new FlowLayout());

		JButton button1 = new JButton("Yes");
		JButton button2 = new JButton("No");

		//set action listeners for buttons
		button1.addActionListener(this);
		button2.addActionListener(this);

		//add buttons to the frame
		add(button1);
		add(button2);

	}

	@Override
	public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent ae) {
		String action = ae.getActionCommand();
		if (action.equals("Yes")) {
			System.out.println("Yes Button pressed!");
		}
		else if (action.equals("No")) {
			System.out.println("No Button pressed!");
		}
	}

	private static void createAndShowGUI() {

  //Create and set up the window.

  JFrame frame = new HandleActionEventsForJButton();

  //Display the window.

  frame.pack();

  frame.setVisible(true);

  frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);

    }

	public static void main(String[] args) {

  //Schedule a job for the event-dispatching thread:

  //creating and showing this application's GUI.

  javax.swing.SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {

public void run() {

    createAndShowGUI(); 

}

  });
    }

}

This was an example on how to handle action events for JButton.