Can I add an ActionListener to a JPanel

Question

I am creating a swing program which basically has a lot of buttons, and I was thinking that instead of adding the listener individually to each button, if I could add the listener to the JPanel instead, and read the events using .getSource() function, things would be a whole lot easier? Is it possible?

Answer 1

Adding a listener to a component doesn't mean that you are also adding that listener to the internal components. Instead, think of using groups of buttons (eg a button array) and add the listener to all buttons with one iteration.

for(JButton button : buttonsArray)
    button.addActionListener(yourActionListener);

Answer 2

I am creating a swing program which basically has a lot of buttons, and I was thinking that instead of adding the listener individually to each button, if I could add the listener to the JPanel instead, and read the events using .getSource() function, things would be a whole lot easier? Is it possible?

not possible to add ActionListener , only MouseListener can do that, but not correct way for JButton

depends of your code, you have to add ActionListener to every JButtons and to determinte which one is pressed by

• put/getClientProperty

• ActionCommand

• programatically loop instide arrays of JButtons and to compare event and JButton

Answer 3

No, you can not, take a look on documentation

If all your buttons have the same listener behavior, add them to ArrayList<JButton> and in loop add the same instance of ActionListener