Saving parameters entered in a gui dialog to be used in the main panel

Question

Hi,
I'm having a nightmare at the moment.
I've finished creating a program for my final year project, that is all comand line at the moment.
i'm required to design a GUI for this. i've started already and have a main panel that has a few buttons one of which is a setParameters button. which opens up a file dialog that allows the user to enter parameters that will be used by the main panel later on.
I'm having trouble imagining how these parameters will be accessed by the main Panel once they are saved.
At the moment, without the GUI i have get and set methods in my main program which works fine. Is this the kind of thing i'll be using for this?
my code for the parameters dialog
public class Parameters  extends JDialog
     private GridLayout grid1, grid2, grid3;
     JButton ok, cancel;
        public Parameters()
                setTitle( "Parameters" );
                setSize( 400,500 );
                setDefaultCloseOperation( DISPOSE_ON_CLOSE );
          grid1 = new GridLayout(7,2);
          grid2 = new GridLayout(1,2);
                JPanel topPanel = new JPanel();
                topPanel.setLayout(grid1);
          JPanel buttonPanel = new JPanel();
                buttonPanel.setLayout(grid2);
          ok = new JButton("OK");
              ok.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
              public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
              //when pressed i want to save the parameters that the user has entered
          //and be able to access these in the RunPanel class
          cancel = new JButton("Cancel");
             cancel.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
                      public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
                    //when pressed just want the Jdialog  to close
          buttonPanel.add(ok);
          buttonPanel.add(cancel);
          JTextArea affinityThresholdScalar = new JTextArea();
          JTextArea clonalRate = new JTextArea();
          JTextArea stimulationValue = new JTextArea();
          JTextArea totalResources = new JTextArea();
          JLabel aTSLabel = new JLabel("affinityThresholdScalar");
          JLabel cRLabel = new JLabel("clonalRate");
          topPanel.add(aTSLabel);
          topPanel.add(affinityThresholdScalar);
          topPanel.add(cRLabel);
          topPanel.add(clonalRate);
                Container container = getContentPane();//.add( topPanel );
          container.add( topPanel, BorderLayout.CENTER );
          container.add( buttonPanel, BorderLayout.SOUTH );
     }the main panel class is:
public class RunPanel extends JPanel implements ActionListener
     JButton openButton, setParametersButton, saveButton;
     static private final String newline = "\n";
     JTextArea log;
         JFileChooser fc;
     Data d = new Data();
     Normalise rf = new Normalise();
     Parameters param = new Parameters();
    public RunPanel()
        super(new BorderLayout());
        log = new JTextArea(5,20);
        log.setMargin(new Insets(5,5,5,5));
        log.setEditable(false);
        JScrollPane logScrollPane = new JScrollPane(log);
        fc = new JFileChooser();
        openButton = new JButton("Open a File...")
        openButton.addActionListener(this);
     setParametersButton = new JButton("Set User Parameters");
        setParametersButton.addActionListener(this);
     saveButton = new JButton("save");
        saveButton.addActionListener(this);
        JPanel buttonPanel = new JPanel(); //use FlowLayout
        buttonPanel.add(openButton);
     buttonPanel.add(setParametersButton);
     JPanel savePanel = new JPanel();
     savePanel.add(saveButton);
        add(buttonPanel, BorderLayout.PAGE_START);
        add(logScrollPane, BorderLayout.CENTER);
     add(savePanel, BorderLayout.SOUTH);
    public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
        if (e.getSource() == openButton) {
            int returnVal = fc.showOpenDialog(RunPanel.this);
            if (returnVal == JFileChooser.APPROVE_OPTION) {
                File file = fc.getSelectedFile();
                log.append("Opening: " + file.getName() + "." + newline);
          Vector data = d.readFile(file);
          log.append("Reading file into Vector " +data+ "." + newline);
          Vector dataNormalised = rf.normalise(data);
         else {
                log.append("Open command cancelled by user." + newline);
            log.setCaretPosition(log.getDocument().getLength());
     else if (e.getSource() == saveButton) {
            int returnVal = fc.showSaveDialog(RunPanel.this);
            if (returnVal == JFileChooser.APPROVE_OPTION) {
                File file = fc.getSelectedFile();
                log.append("Saving: " + file.getName() + "." + newline);
            } else {
                log.append("Save command cancelled by user." + newline);
            log.setCaretPosition(log.getDocument().getLength());
     else
          if (e.getSource() == setParametersButton)
                log.append("loser." + newline);
                      param.show();
    private static void createAndShowGUI() {
        JFrame.setDefaultLookAndFeelDecorated(true);
        JDialog.setDefaultLookAndFeelDecorated(true);
        JFrame frame = new JFrame("AIRS");
        frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        JComponent newContentPane = new RunPanel();
        newContentPane.setOpaque(true);
        frame.setContentPane(newContentPane);
        frame.pack();
        frame.setVisible(true);
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        javax.swing.SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
            public void run() {
                createAndShowGUI();
}Can anybody offer any suggestions?
Cheers

Answer 1

What you need is my ParamDialog. I think it could be perfect for this sort of thing. There are a few references in it to some of my other classes namely
StandardDialog. Which you can find by searching for other posts on this forum. But if you'd rather not find that you could just use JDialog instead
WindowUtils.visualize() this is just a helper method for getting things visualized on the screen. You can just use setBounds and setVisible and you'll be fine.
You are welcome to use and modify this code but please don't change the package or take credit for it as your own work.
If you need to bring up a filedialog or a color chooser you will need to make some modifications. If you do this, would you mind posting that when you are done so that myself and others can use it? :)
StandardDialog.java
================
package tjacobs.ui;
import java.awt.Dialog;
import java.awt.Frame;
import java.awt.GraphicsConfiguration;
import java.awt.HeadlessException;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.JPasswordField;
import javax.swing.JTextField;
import java.awt.*;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Properties;
/** Usage:
* *      ParamDialog pd = new ParamDialog(new String[] {"A", "B", "C"});
* pd.pack();
* pd.setVisible(true);
* Properties p = pd.getProperties();
public class ParamDialog extends StandardDialog {
     public static final String SECRET = "(SECRET)";
     String[] fields;
     HashMap<String, JTextField> mValues = new HashMap<String, JTextField>();
     public ParamDialog(String[] fields) throws HeadlessException {
          this(null, fields);
     public ParamDialog(JFrame owner, String[] fields) {
          super(owner);
          setModal(true);
          this.fields = fields;
          JPanel main = new JPanel();
          main.setLayout(new GridLayout(fields.length, 1));
          for (int i = 0; i < fields.length; i++) {
               JPanel con = new JPanel(new FlowLayout());
               main.add(con);
               JTextField tf;
               if (fields.endsWith(SECRET)) {
                    con.add(new JLabel(fields[i].substring(0, fields[i].length() - SECRET.length())));
                    tf = new JPasswordField();
               else {
                    con.add(new JLabel(fields[i]));
                    tf = new JTextField();
               tf.setColumns(12);
               con.add(tf);
               mValues.put(fields[i], tf);
          this.setMainContent(main);
     public boolean showApplyButton() {
          return false;
     public void apply() {
     private boolean mCancel = false;
     public void cancel() {
          mCancel = true;
          super.cancel();
     public Properties getProperties() {
          if (mCancel) return null;
          Properties p = new Properties();
          for (int i = 0; i < fields.length; i++) {
               p.put(fields[i], mValues.get(fields[i]).getText());
          return p;
     public static void main (String[] args) {
          ParamDialog pd = new ParamDialog(new String[] {"A", "B", "C"});
          WindowUtilities.visualize(pd);     
     public static Properties getProperties(String[] fields) {
          ParamDialog pd = new ParamDialog(fields);
          WindowUtilities.visualize(pd);
          return pd.getProperties();