Question

I am trying to change color using getColor(String name) function but it seems not to work.May be I am doing some kind of mistake. Here is the code:

public class ComboBoxPractice extends JFrame{

private String names={"Color.YELLOW","Color.RED","Color.GREEN"};

public ComboBoxPractice()
{
    ...

    box.addItemListener(

            new ItemListener()
            {
                public void itemStateChanged(ItemEvent event)
                {
                    if(event.getStateChange()==event.SELECTED)
                    {
                        getContentPane().setBackground(Color.getColor(names[box.getSelectedIndex()]));
                    }
                }
            }
    );
}

}

I have also tried the String array containing Color names alone like YELLOW , RED, BLUE. but it wasn’t working.

I know the other way of changing color by making an array of Class Color, but I wanted to try this method.

What am I doing wrong?

Regards

Answer 1

Either use the Color class as :

 private Color[] colors ={Color.YELLOW,Color.RED,Color.GREEN};

If you use the Color class, then you may update statement below as:

    getContentPane().setBackground(Color.getColor(names[box.getSelectedIndex()]));

as

    getContentPane().setBackground(colors[box.getSelectedIndex()]);

or use the names as “black”, “red” etc.

    private String[] names={"yellow","red","green"};

If you decide to use the color name as above, then you may get the Color object using reflection as below:

    Field field = Color.class.getField(names[0]);
    Color color = (Color)field.get(null);