Action Method vs. HandleEvent method

Question

Hello,
Can anyone tell me what the difference between the action method and the handleEvent method?
Or more specifically, what can you do in one method that you can't do in the other?
Thanks

Answer 1

schapel is correct. Those are methods from the old JDK 1.0.x hiearchical event model and have been deprecated. But to answer your questioin, the action() method is overriden to handle action events (e.g., menu item selection, button press, ENTER key pressed in a TextField) whereas the handleEvent() method is where all events are dispatched from (including the action() method). Typically you override the handleEvent() method to dispose of a frame (see attached sample JDK 1.0.x application code).
import java.awt.*;
public class Hiearchical {
public static void main(String args[]) {
  new HiearchicalFrame();
class HiearchicalFrame extends Frame {
Button ok = new Button("OK");
HiearchicalFrame() {
  super();
  /* Size the frame */
  resize(200,200);
  /* Center the frame */
  Dimension screenDim = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getScreenSize();
  Rectangle frameDim = bounds();
  move((screenDim.width - frameDim.width) / 2,(screenDim.height - frameDim.height) / 2);
  /* Add button to frame */
  add("South",ok);
  /* Show the frame */
  show();
public boolean handleEvent(Event evt) {
  if (evt.id == Event.WINDOW_DESTROY) {
   dispose(); System.exit(0);
  return super.handleEvent(evt);
public boolean action(Event evt, Object obj)
  if (obj.equals("OK"))
   System.out.println("You pressed the OK button!");
  return false; //don't propogate the event up the containment chain