Alternative to Anonymous/Inner when Adding Behavior to Swing Elements?

Question

Hello! I am new to Java and have been trying to teach myself the basics by writing a Swing "JApplet". In adding mouse-click behavior to elements, I have been able to get the desired results by using anonymous "inner" classes. However, I am wondering if there is an alternative way to do this, that may be neater. For example, is there a way to make a non-inner class to apply the behavior, and then use it multiple times? The catch is that I need to apply this behavior to dynamically generated elements, to it has to be able to access certain variables.
But enough talk, here is a link to the working applet:
[http://brockfanning.com/RandomCells.html|http://brockfanning.com/RandomCells.html]
And here is the working code:
import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
public class RandomCells extends JApplet
     private JPanel mainPanel;
     public void init()
          // Set up main grid
          mainPanel = new JPanel();
          mainPanel.setLayout(new GridLayout(0,2));
          getContentPane().add(mainPanel);
          // add a specific mouse-click behavior for each of a random number of 1 to 10 cells
          int randomNumber = (int)(10 * Math.random()) + 1;
          for (int cell = 1; cell <= randomNumber; cell++)
               JPanel newCell = new JPanel();
               mainPanel.add(newCell);
               newCell.add(new JLabel("Click to dislay the number " + Integer.toString(cell)));
               // Make the "cell" variable "final" so it can be used in the following anonymous method
               final int cellFinal = cell;
               // Add mouseclick behavior to the cell
               newCell.addMouseListener(new MouseAdapter()
                    public void mouseClicked(MouseEvent me)
                         JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(mainPanel, Integer.toString(cellFinal), "", JOptionPane.PLAIN_MESSAGE);
}Any help in an alternative to this anonymous inner class technique would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

One more question if possible:
How would I reference the RandomCells class from the new separated class?
I'll post what I have below. But notice the "???????" in the new CellClick class. I'm not sure what to put here, as I need to reference the "mainPanel" field of the RandomCells class. Is there any way to do this without explicitly passing the mainPanel as a parameter?
RandomCells class:
import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
public class RandomCells extends JApplet
     private JPanel mainPanel;
     public void init()
          // Set up main grid
          mainPanel = new JPanel();
          mainPanel.setLayout(new GridLayout(0,2));
          getContentPane().add(mainPanel);
          // add a specific mouse-click behavior for each of a random number of 1 to 10 cells
          int randomNumber = (int)(10 * Math.random()) + 1;
          for (int cell = 1; cell <= randomNumber; cell++)
               JPanel newCell = new JPanel();
               mainPanel.add(newCell);
               newCell.add(new JLabel("Click to dislay the number " + Integer.toString(cell)));
               // Make the "cell" variable "final" so it can be used in the following anonymous method
               final int cellFinal = cell;
               // Add mouseclick behavior to the cell
               newCell.addMouseListener(new CellClick(cellFinal));
}CellClick class:
import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
public class CellClick extends MouseAdapter
     // Fields
     private int var1;
     // Constructor
     public CellClick(int var1)
          this.var1 = var1;
     // Methods
     public void mouseClicked(MouseEvent me)
          JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(???????, Integer.toString(this.var1), "", JOptionPane.PLAIN_MESSAGE);
}