Checkbox applet

Question

I need some help on an applet I am writing. I need the applet to monitor 6 checkboxes. If any number of boxes are checked I need a message to appear in a text box. If none of the boxes are checked I need the text box to clear.
I need this to happen "on-the-fly", if one box is ticked I need the message, if the user unticks the box, I need the message to go.
I have the boxes, and text box working but cannot get the message to appear at the right times.
It will only work for two of the boxes, when I try to get the third box to be monitored, the whole thing falls apart and doesn't work at all as it should.
Can what I want be done? Or am I trying to do the impossible?
Please help
nrestell

Answer 1

is it now possible to add 5 more checkboxes that have
a different message? Can that be done simply by
repeating what is already there but changing the name
of "j" and "checkedCount"?My previous post was supposed just to be a "proof of concept" for the counter idea. In order to add more sets of check boxes, it seems like the design needs to be changed a little in order not to get too tied up with keeping track of which check box is being changed and which count needs to be updated. So I made the ItemListener into its own full-fledged class so there could be multiple instances of it, each with its own counter, label, and message. That way the listener keeps track of what it needs to be updating.
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.applet.Applet;
public class CheckMe extends Applet {
  public void init()
    setLayout(new GridLayout(1,2));
    Panel group1 = new Panel(new GridLayout(7,1));
    Panel group2 = new Panel(new GridLayout(6,1));
    Checkbox[] cb1 = new Checkbox[6];
    Label lbl1 = new Label();           // create empty label
    CheckboxListener cbl1 = new CheckboxListener(lbl1, "First Message");
    for(int j=0; j<6; j++) {
      cb1[j] = new Checkbox(cbLabels[j], false);
      cb1[j].addItemListener(cbl1);
      group1.add(cb1[j]);
    group1.add(lbl1);
    Checkbox[] cb2 = new Checkbox[5];
    Label lbl2 = new Label();           // create empty label
    CheckboxListener cbl2 =
                    new CheckboxListener(lbl2, "Second  Message");
    for(int j=0; j<5; j++) {
      cb2[j] = new Checkbox(cbLabels[j], false);
      cb2[j].addItemListener(cbl2);
      group2.add(cb2[j]);
    group2.add(lbl2);
    add(group1);
    add(group2);
  private static final String[] cbLabels =
              {"one", "two", "three", "four", "five", "six"};
class CheckboxListener implements ItemListener {
  public CheckboxListener(Label lbl, String msg)
    label = lbl;
    message = msg;
  public void itemStateChanged(ItemEvent e)
    if(e.getStateChange() == ItemEvent.SELECTED)
      checkedCount++;
    if(e.getStateChange() == ItemEvent.DESELECTED)
      checkedCount--;
    if(checkedCount > 0)
      label.setText(message);
    else
      label.setText("");
  private int checkedCount = 0;     // count of how many boxes are checked
  private Label label;
  private String message;