JTextField actionListener

Question

Hi,
I'm having quite an issue I hope someone can help me with. I want to add an actionlistener to a textField. But I want it respond not only to when press the return key. I want it to respond as soon as i press any button when the jtextfield is in focus.
Can anyone help me?

Answer 1

I think it makes more sense to install a document listener:
import javax.swing.*;
import javax.swing.event.*;
public class DocumentListenerExample implements Runnable, DocumentListener {
    private JTextField field;
    @Override
    public void run() {
        field = new JTextField(40);
        field.getDocument().addDocumentListener(this);
        JFrame f = new JFrame("DocumentListenerExample");
        f.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        f.getContentPane().add(field);
        f.pack();
        f.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
        f.setVisible(true);
    @Override
    public void changedUpdate(DocumentEvent e) {
        reactToTextFieldChange();
    @Override
    public void insertUpdate(DocumentEvent e) {
        reactToTextFieldChange();
    @Override
    public void removeUpdate(DocumentEvent e) {
        reactToTextFieldChange();
    void reactToTextFieldChange() {
        System.out.println("field.text is now " + field.getText());
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new DocumentListenerExample());
}By the way, Swing questions should be posted to the swing forum.