Question

I have a simple GUI which contains:

• a push button.
• Two radio buttons

Now I want to listen to each one of these buttons. What I do is something like that:

public class TestApp implements ActionListener {

    private JFrame frame;
    private JButton btn;
    private JRadioButton rdb1;
    private JRadioButton rdb2; 

    public static void main(String[] args) { /*....*/ }

    private void initialize() {
       //Each time I add a button, I add it to the listener:
       btn = new JButton("Button");
       btn.addActionListener(this);
       //..
       rdb1 = new JRadioButton("Value1");
       rdb1.addActionListener(this);
       //And so on...
    }

    //The ActionEvents  
    public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
       if(e.getSource()==btn)
       //...
       if(e.getSource()==rdb1)
       //...        
    }
}

Now I want to know if this considered a good/bad style?

Answer 1

Unless the listener is a very long method, I personally prefer the anonymous class pattern:

        final JButton btn = new JButton("Button");
        final JRadioButton rdb1 = new JRadioButton("Value1");
        final ActionListener listener = new ActionListener() {
            @Override
            public void actionPerformed(final ActionEvent e) {
                if (e.getSource() == btn) {
                    //...
                } else if (e.getSource() == rdb1) {
                    //...        
                }
            }
        };
        btn.addActionListener(listener);
        rdb1.addActionListener(listener);

or even better:

    btn.addActionListener(new ActionListener (){
         public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {      
             // btn handling code
             }
    });
    rdb1.addActionListener(new ActionListener (){
         public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {      
             // rdb1 handling code
             }
    });

The pattern you are using allows other class to set the class TestApp to be set as a listener by other classes – unless this is intended, it is not a good practice.