Trying to get a button to update Jtextarea on a frame..

Question

Hi,
This a newbie. I have the following code but can't figure out how to append data I read into a string into JTextArea...
The code builds the frame which implements action listener.
               outputArea = new JTextArea("Books", 15, 15);
               container.add(outputArea);
I'm trying to append a string to the outputArea but the code does not fire...
The code is in a seperate event class
if ( event.getSource() == showButton )
f or ( int i = 0; i <= book.length; i++)
                         bookString += book.toBookString();
                         outputArea.append(bookString);
Could it be the scope of the outputArea variable? I have tried to add other things to the frame in the ActionListener class but nothing seems to work. The actions work on other buttons. I just can't seem to append the JTextArea on my frame.
Any thoughts out there?

Answer 1

Any thoughts out there?Where you create your GUI
(1) Check that the button and output area are the same ones that are later
referred to in the event handler. You often see the (wrong)class MyFrame {
    private JButton button;
    MyFrame() {
        JButton button = new JButton();
}(2) Check that the event listener has been added as a listener.
(3) Put a System.out.println(); at the start of the event listener to check that
it really is not being fired. (As distinct from your bookString ending up empty
for instance).
If all else fails constructing a small example that compiles and illustrates
your problem. If you do this, use the code tags described here:
http://forum.java.sun.com/help.jspa?sec=formatting
Basically the idea is that you start your code with [code] and end it with [/code].
That way if you post something like
[code]if(tagsUsed) {
System.out.println("Output looks nice");
}[/code]
It will appear like if(tagsUsed) {
    System.out.println("Output looks nice");
}(In general you should post Swing questions to the Swing forum.)