Can not resolve symbol in method showMessageDialog

Question

I tried to dispaly a mesg using JOptionPane, it gives error mesg like
HWS.java:27: cannot resolve symbol
symbol : method showMessageDialog (<anonymous java.awt.event.ActionListener>,j
ava.lang.String,java.lang.String,int)
location: class javax.swing.JOptionPane
JOptionPane.showMessageDialog (this, "The","Exit", JOptionPane.INFORMATION_M
ESSAGE);
^
pls help.
Sabarish
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import javax.swing.*;
public class HWS extends JFrame{
public HWS() {
super("Learning...");
setSize(300,300);
JLabel label2 = new JLabel("Jegan Rao");
JButton button = new JButton("Click here");
Container pane = getContentPane();
pane.setLayout(new FlowLayout());
pane.add(button);
pane.add(label2);
ActionListener al = new ActionListener(){
public void actionPerformed (ActionEvent ae){
JOptionPane.showMessageDialog (this, "The","Exit", JOptionPane.INFORMATION_MESSAGE);
button.setHorizontalAlignment(JButton.CENTER);
button.addActionListener(al);
button.setVerticalAlignment(JButton.CENTER);
label2.setHorizontalAlignment(JLabel.CENTER);
label2.setVerticalAlignment(JLabel.CENTER);
setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
pack();
setVisible(true);
public static void main(String [] args){
HWS h = new HWS();
}

Answer 1

Please post code using the code tags. There is a code button when you enter text for your message. Click on it then paste your code between the tags.
All of the JOptionPane showMessageDialog() methods require a Component as the first object argument. Your code calls showMessageDialog from inside an actionPerformed() method, which is inside an ActionListener. So 'this' is an ActionListener, not a JFrame or other Component.
Are you sure you want to call up a dialog in an actionPerformed() method? This method is called from the event thread, and blocks this thread until the dialog completes. This means no events can occur until the dialog completes, but it may require an event to complete the dialog.