Can a jpanel refer to its containing jframe to run a method?

Question

I have a JFrame using a card layout. Two separate JPanels are added to the layout, each with its own functioning command buttons. Is there a way for a button click on the first panel to flip the card, i.e., display the second panel?
Edited by: ScottBrush on May 25, 2009 3:40 PM

Answer 1

aw heck...
SimpleCardContainerReference.java
import java.awt.CardLayout;
import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.Dimension;
import javax.swing.JComponent;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
public class SimpleCardContainerReference {
  private static final Color[] COLORS = {
    Color.white, Color.red, Color.blue, Color.yellow,
    Color.orange, Color.pink, Color.cyan
  private JPanel mainPanel = new JPanel();
  private CardLayout cardLayout = new CardLayout();
  public SimpleCardContainerReference() {
    mainPanel.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(400, 300));
    mainPanel.setLayout(cardLayout);
    for (int i = 0; i < COLORS.length; i++) {
      MyCard card = new MyCard(this, i);  // pass reference here
      JComponent component = card.getComponent();
      component.setBackground(COLORS);
mainPanel.add(component, "Panel " + i);
public JComponent getComponent() {
return mainPanel;
public void nextCard() {
cardLayout.next(mainPanel);
private static void createAndShowUI() {
JFrame frame = new JFrame("SimpleCardContainerReference");
frame.getContentPane().add(
     new SimpleCardContainerReference().getComponent());
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
frame.pack();
frame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
frame.setVisible(true);
public static void main(String[] args) {
java.awt.EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
     createAndShowUI();
MyCard.java
import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.Font;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JComponent;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.SwingConstants;
class MyCard {
  private JPanel mainPanel = new JPanel();
  public MyCard(final SimpleCardContainerReference container, int i) {
    JLabel label = new JLabel("Card Panel " + i, SwingConstants.CENTER);
    label.setFont(label.getFont().deriveFont(Font.BOLD, 40));
    JButton button = new JButton("Next Card");
    button.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
      public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
        container.nextCard(); // container's method called here ***
    JPanel btnPanel = new JPanel();
    btnPanel.setOpaque(false);
    btnPanel.add(button);
    mainPanel.setLayout(new BorderLayout());
    mainPanel.add(label, BorderLayout.CENTER);
    mainPanel.add(btnPanel, BorderLayout.SOUTH);
  public JComponent getComponent() {
    return mainPanel;
}Edited by: Encephalopathic on May 25, 2009 7:20 PM