Trying to setText on random JPanels via a String array?

Question

My assignment is to create a bunch of JButtons, and randomly have an "X" appear on one, until it is clicked, and then it goes away and reappears on another random one. It does this ten times and displays the time it took to do so.
I've created all the JButtons, named b01 to b48 and put them in a gridLayout. That part works fine.
I created a String[] array with the 48 names of the JButtons in it, then I was thinking I could go this route...
Random r = new Random();
String random = panels[r.nextInt(panels.length)];
random.setText("X");  //This is where the program hangs up.I can replace the setText statement with a System.out.println statement, and it shows up on the console correctly...

Answer 1

Brandon,
Have a chook at my minesweeper game at http://forum.java.sun.com/thread.jspa?forumID=54&threadID=5248903 ... it uses a matrix of cells[rows][cols]... each Cell is a JPanel which contains a Button.
I think you'll end up with something like ...
  // create an array of Buttons
  Button buttons[] = Button[NUM_BUTTONS];
  for (int i=0; i<NUM_BUTTONS; i++) {
    buttons[] = new Button(i);
  // Xify a random button for a random time
  buttons[random.nextInt(NUM_BUTTONS)].xify()I'd create a:
class Button extends JButton
* provides a constructor(int index) which sizes and places the button according to it's index
* provides an "xify" method, which setText("X"), then sets-up a SwingTimer to setText(null) after a random time.
Cheers. Keith.