Question

I have 5 JButtons: b1, b2, b3, b4, b5.
By default, their color is gray.
When I click on any button, the background of that button changes to white.
When I click another button, I want that previous clicked button to change its background to gray, and this newly clicked button to change its background to white. Here is the code that I wrote:

int liveButton = 0; //holds the value of the button that is last clicked.
//0 indicates no button clicked (in the beginning)

private void ChangeInUsersList(int clickedButton) {
    switch(liveButton) {
        case 1 : b1.setBackground(Color.GRAY);
                 break;
        case 2 : b2.setBackground(Color.GRAY);
                 break;
        case 3 : b3.setBackground(Color.GRAY);
                 break;
        case 4 : b4.setBackground(Color.GRAY);
                 break;
        case 5 : b5.setBackground(Color.GRAY);
                 break;
        default: System.out.println("No button to change");
    }
    liveButton = clickedButton;// store the clicked button to change its
    //background later
}
private void b1ActionPerformed(java.awt.event.ActionEvent evt) {
    ChangeInUsersList(1);
    b1.setBackground(new java.awt.Color(255,255,255));
}

private void b2ActionPerformed(java.awt.event.ActionEvent evt) {
    ChangeInUsersList(2);
    b2.setBackground(new java.awt.Color(255,255,255));
}

private void b3ActionPerformed(java.awt.event.ActionEvent evt) {
    ChangeInUsersList(3);
    b3.setBackground(new java.awt.Color(255,255,255));
}

private void b4ActionPerformed(java.awt.event.ActionEvent evt) {
    ChangeInUsersList(4);
    b4.setBackground(new java.awt.Color(255,255,255));
}

private void b5ButtonActionPerformed(java.awt.event.ActionEvent evt) {
    ChangeInUsersList(5);
    b5.setBackground(new java.awt.Color(255,255,255));
}

However, its not working as expected. When i click on a button, its background does change to white. However, if i click on some other button after that, the former button’s background doesnt change to grey. I tried replacing Color.GREY with new java.awt.Color(236,233,216) – the rgb for grey but it still doesnt work.

Answer 1

I fixed it by adding the following line after declaring “liveButton” variable:

Color buttonColor = b1.getBackground();

Later, inside ChangeInUsersList function, I replaced “Color.GRAY” with buttonColor.
And it worked 🙂