Making classes talk to each other, getting my head around object-oriented

Question

How many questions can I ask before people get annoyed? Hope I'm not asking too many. This is probably a dumb question, but trying to do this whole object-oriented thing is making my head spin. I want my program to make something happen in Panel 2 when there's a mouse event in Panel 1 and vice versa. In psuedo-code (very pseudo):
panel1.addMouseListener(new MousyListener());
private class MousyListener implements MouseListener
          public void mouseEntered(MouseEvent event) {
               Make stuff happen in panel2
I don't even know where to start. I've looked at the tutorials,I've looked in my books, but I still as confused as ever. Could someone please give me a hint as to how I make this happen?

Answer 1

codinatrix wrote:
How many questions can I ask before people get annoyed? Hope I'm not asking too many. You can ask as many questions as you like.
What is annoying is when people cross post the same question. Or when people ask 37 obviously exam type questions in the span of 5 minutes. But as you're not doing either of those don't worry about it.
This is probably a dumb question, My personal motto (gained by my personal experience) is "there's no question so profound you won't feel like an idiot later for not knowing".
but trying to do this whole object-oriented thing is making my head spin.Ah yes. It will do that.
I want my program to make something happen in Panel 2 when there's a mouse event in Panel 1 and vice versa. In psuedo-code (very pseudo):A number of suggestions for you.
1) When posting code on this forum please make sure and use the code formatting tags. You can do this by selected the code in the posting message box and clicking the CODE button.
2) I would stay well clear of Swing for awhile. It (and GUI in general for that matter) is not the easiest way to learn OO ness. In fact, in my opinion, it's about the hardest. I don't know where you are with your learning and what you know and don't know though so this may be out of place. If not though I would recommend one to play around with interfaces and abstract classes for awhile. I think once one understands the point of an abstract class one is well on the way to a solid foundation of Java OOness.
3) This will contradict point 2 but for Swing you should learn about the MVC pattern. Here are a couple of links on the subject http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model-view-controller and http://java.sun.com/blueprints/patterns/MVC.html
MVC is important because it explains the how-to and why of what one should do with OOness when it comes to GUI.
4) Don't be afraid to get it wrong. The best way to learn this stuff is by practice. Do it in a way you understand and that makes it work. Then go back and think how you could do it better. Think about how you could encapsulate your classes. Think about how you can seperate the logic of your application from the GUI.
Good luck.