Handling JCheckBox events

Question

Hello,
I need to implement a JCheckBox event handler that only runs its code when the user herself selects and unselects it. I used an ItemListener handler. My problem is that now whenever I change the selection of this JCheckBox programmatically using the setSelected(boolean) method, it also runs the method of the ItemListener event handler !! How can I tell Java to run the handler only when the user produces the event? I read the setSelected(boolean) method specification and I think that it will not be called programmatically only if I handled the JCheckBox with an ActionListener handler, but is there a way to achieve the same thing with an ItemListener handler?
Thanks in advance

Answer 1

camickr wrote:> > And why would you retrieve the model when you can check the check box directly?To tell you the truth, I have never used an ActionListener to handle a JCheckBox before as I use it to deal with JButtons most of the time. But the following is taken from a well known book on Java Swing:
Listening to JCheckBox Events with an ActionListener:
Subscribing to ActionEvent generation with an ActionListener allows you to find out when the user toggles the state of the JCheckBox. As with JToggleButton, the subscribed listener is told of the selection, but not the new state. To find out the selected state, you must get the model for the event source and ask_, as the following sample ActionListener source shows. This listener modifies the check box label to reflect the selection state:
ActionListener actionListener = new ActionListener() {
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent actionEvent) {
AbstractButton abstractButton = (AbstractButton)actionEvent.getSource();
boolean selected = abstractButton.getModel().isSelected();
String newLabel = (selected ? SELECTED_LABEL : DESELECTED_LABEL);
abstractButton.setText(newLabel);
camickr wrote:Well, it already does. Apparently, the ItemListener is fired when the model changes, but the ActionListener only fires when the button is clicked. So how does this not meet your criteria, if you use the ActionListener?The question was how to meet the criteria with the use of an ItemListener handle, not an ActionListener. According to the Java API documentation, The method setSelected(boolean)* does not trigger an <code>actionEvent handler, but it indeed triggers an ItemListener handler as this is my problem that I face in my code. However, the Java API offers an altenative method to setSelected(boolean)* that will trigger an ActionListener handler if we want to handle a JCheckBox element programmatically, which is the doClick* method. Now the question is: Is there any alternative method to setSelected *that will NOT trigger the ItemListener handler? </code>