JFrame references in JDialog constructors.

Question

If you have a single JFrame that houses your GUI and have Dialogs scattered through out your application, what is the best way to make create each dialog with a reference to that one master JFrame.
Currently, I am passing the JFrame reference all over the place. Practically every constructor now has a JFrame as part of its argument list. The object graph is fairly deep, because I have screens that open sub screens, I have panels that are resused among screens; I have table editor that popup messages; etc; etc. It would be so nice if I didn't have to pass this JFrame reference to ever thing I created.
I could use the Singleton pattern, but I heard this was a bad idea.
Can someone give me some guidance, and perhaps an example?
Thanks.

Answer 1

When I say "Dialogs scattered throughout the application", I'm trying to say that I have one JFrame with a main method. When launched through the main method, the primary view is loaded. From there, the user can click in different areas to launch "detail" screens. Within these "detail" screens, I have fields that need validation. These validations require a lot of messages to be generated for the user. To do this, I use JOptionPane. JOptionPane requires a JFrame. (Technically, the JFrame is optional, but without it you run into other issues.)
For example, here's some I have plugged into one of my JTable Editors:
  public boolean stopCellEditing(){
    String startTime = (String)_table.getModel().getValueAt(_row, _col - 1);
    if(startTime == null || "".equals(startTime)){
      return super.stopCellEditing();
    Float start = getTimeAsDecimal(startTime);
    Float end = getTimeAsDecimal(_editor.getText());
    if(end < start){
      Object response = Message.showMessageDialog(_frame, "MESSAGE", JOptionPane.INFORMATION_MESSAGE, "End must be after start");
      _editor.setBackground(Color.RED);
      _editor.setForeground(Color.WHITE);
     _editor.requestFocus();
      return false;
    return super.stopCellEditing();
  }You will notice that I have "_frame" as a variable in my showMessageDialog. I have to pass this "_frame" object from the very top, pass it into the JDialog that houses the JTable, then pass it into the editor that has this message. Now, this is only three layers. There are occasions where I have to pass it even more layers.
Is this bad architecture? Can it be done better or more efficiently?
Why is it bad to have a singleton JFrame object? How is everyone else doing it?
Thanks.
Edited by: Kazan on Jan 21, 2009 2:11 PM