Scope of JTabbedPane

Question

See also http://forum.java.sun.com/thread.jsp?forum=57&thread=250434
I need to be able to select a cell or header of a JTable that is within a tab of a JTabbedPane and based on the selection switch to a differnet tab.
Below is sample code which hopefully clearly illustrates what I am trying to do.
It uses JButtons in a JTabbedPane for simplicity. The code will not compile as shown because myTabbedPane is out of scope. The action listener must be in the Button class (or in reality my JTable class or even the header class for the table) and thus the tabbed pane it wishes to address is not in scope. One can see where I have commented out the action listener for ABCSingleButton in ABCTabbedPane.java. To compile remove those comments and comment out the action listener in ABCSingleButton.java. But the real situation I need is to have the action listener in the child class.
So the main question is "how do I address a parent class several parents removed??"
<pre>
// filename: ABC.java
import javax.swing.*;
import javax.swing.event.*;
public class ABC extends JFrame
// This example is greatly simplified
// but the basic structure outlines my question
final ABCTabbedPane myTabbedPane = new ABCTabbedPane();
public ABC()
this.getContentPane().add(myTabbedPane, "Center");
// Add a ChangeListener to update tab content when a tab is selected
myTabbedPane.addChangeListener(new ChangeListener(){
public void stateChanged(ChangeEvent e){
fillTabbedPane();
this.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.DISPOSE_ON_CLOSE);
this.pack();
this.setVisible(true);
// fillTabbedPane
private void fillTabbedPane()
switch(myTabbedPane.getSelectedIndex())
case 0:
myTabbedPane.fillThisTab(myTabbedPane.getCalendar());
break;
case 1:
myTabbedPane.fillThatTab(myTabbedPane.getCalendar());
break;
// main
public static void main(String[] args)
ABC myABC = new ABC();
// filename: ABCTabbedPane
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.util.*;
import javax.swing.*;
class ABCTabbedPane extends JTabbedPane
final JPanel myFirstJP = new JPanel();
final JPanel mySecondJP = new JPanel();
// Create some button objects
// In the real app these are tables but buttons
// are used here for simplicity
final ABCSingleButton myABCSingleJB = new ABCSingleButton();
final ABCDoubleButton myABCDoubleJB = new ABCDoubleButton();
Calendar myCal;
public ABCTabbedPane()
myCal = Calendar.getInstance();
myCal.setTime(new Date());
// Single Button Action Listener
//myABCSingleJB.addActionListener(new ActionListener(){
// public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e){
// setSelectedIndex(1);
// Double Button Action Listener
myABCDoubleJB.addActionListener(new ActionListener(){
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e){
setSelectedIndex(0);
// Add buttons to panels
myFirstJP.add(myABCSingleJB);
mySecondJP.add(myABCDoubleJB);
// Add panels to tabbedpane
this.addTab("RED", myFirstJP);
this.addTab("BLUE", mySecondJP);
// Fill the first Button
fillThisTab(myCal);
this.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(900, 500));
// getCalendar
public Calendar getCalendar()
return myCal;
// fillThisTab
public void fillThisTab(Calendar theCal)
theCal.add(Calendar.DAY_OF_WEEK, 1);
myABCSingleJB.fillButton(theCal);
// fillThatTab
public void fillThatTab(Calendar theCal)
theCal.add(Calendar.DAY_OF_WEEK, 1);
myABCDoubleJB.fillButton(theCal);
// filename: ABCSingleButton
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.text.*;
import java.util.*;
import javax.swing.*;
class ABCSingleButton extends JButton
public ABCSingleButton()
this.setBorder(BorderFactory.createLineBorder(Color.red, 3));
// Single Button Action Listener
// This doesn't compile of course as myTabbedPane is out of scope
this.addActionListener(new ActionListener(){
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e){
myTabbedPane.setSelectedIndex(1);
public void fillButton(Calendar theCal)
DateFormat fullDate = DateFormat.getDateInstance(DateFormat.FULL);
this.setText(fullDate.format(theCal.getTime()));
// filename: ABCDoubleButton
import java.awt.*;
import java.text.*;
import java.util.*;
import javax.swing.*;
class ABCDoubleButton extends JButton
public ABCDoubleButton()
this.setBorder(BorderFactory.createLineBorder(Color.blue, 3));
public void fillButton(Calendar theCal)
DateFormat fullDate = DateFormat.getDateInstance(DateFormat.FULL);
this.setText(fullDate.format(theCal.getTime()));
</pre>

Answer 1

You are mixing AWT & Swing. Either change Button to JButton or read this.
http://java.sun.com/products/jfc/tsc/articles/mixing/index.html