How to programmatically mimic the user action of selecting a button ?

Question

I am using JAVA Swings to build a desktop application. The application has many buttons, lists and text boxes etc. I have created actionPerformed methods that monitor the source for user action. I am able to execute the code whenever an action is performed by user manually.
I also require to save the choices, and texts entered by a user during his active run with the application. This is to avoid user to re-enter all the information once again.
The problem is to programmatically select those buttons and lists which were saved during users earlier session. How can I perform the action event of selecting a radio button from my java code.

Answer 1

Kiran,
Your approach is missing the whole idea of Model-View-Controller. I suspect that somewhere you are saving the data of the user's choices. For example, if you have a checkbox, I suspect you have a java bean somewhere containing a boolean value that is set to true when the checkbox is selected, and false when the checkbox is unselected. This process is mediated by a controller, which has a references to the model (the data) and the view (the UI). The controller sets up as a listener to the actions within the UI, and, when notified, sets the appropriate properties of the data, usually into one or more java beans.
So, on the reverse side of things, the data is read into the java bean(s), and the controller uses that data to set the state of the UI elements. So, your controller can do something like this:
    uiThing.initUI(yourBean);And in the initUI method you have:
    public void initUI(DataBean data) {
         cbxBlue.setSelected(data.isBlue());
         txtLastName.setText(data.getLastName());
         // etc...
    }If you take that general approach, you'll find you don't need to simulate user actions.
In the few cases within the UI where you think you do, you really don't. An ActionListener is just a receiver of when something like a button is pressed. If your program needs to do the same thing as when the button is clicked, create a method to perform the processing, and invoke it directly, rather than trying to figure out how to programmatically press a button.
     public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
          if (e.getActionCommand().equals("BlueButton"))
              this.setBlue();
          //... etc.
     private void setBlue() {
         // whatever
     // somewhere else in the code
     private void someProcess() {
          // other work
          // other work
          if (someCondition) this.setBlue();  // rather than forcing an action event
          // other work
          // other work
     }