Question

I’ve a Swing GUI with 50 or so Jlabels:

{
    jLabel1 = new JLabel();
    getContentPane().add(jLabel1, "0, 0");
    jLabel1.setText("AAPL 1453.54 2334.34 3234.32");
    jLabel1.setForeground(new java.awt.Color(0,249,0));
}

I want to be able to change the txt and colour without having to write a large bunch of conditional statements. What’s the best way to do this?

I was thinking to write a method overWrite(String text, int hPos, int vPos){} to just add a new label in the place.

There might be a much better way to do this, I’m trying to make a crude stock display that changes stock prices and colour depending on an increase or decrease.

Answer 1

Okey, the solution below is ugly so I just came up with another solution… You can set a name of each of your labels so that you can get a specific label. And you do not need any other structure to hold the information.

JLabel label = new JLabel();
label.setName("the_name");

You can then iterate (just like the other solution) over the components and get the specific one like this:

    for (Component c : frame.getContentPane().getComponents()) {
        if (c.getName().equals("the_name")) {
            // do the modifications...
        }
    }

---

Old solution: This is ugly but works.. 🙂

public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {

    JFrame frame = new JFrame("Test");
    frame.setLayout(new GridLayout(0, 1));
    frame.add(new JButton("Hello"));
    frame.add(new JLabel("World", JLabel.CENTER));
    frame.add(new JButton("Hello"));
    frame.add(new JLabel("World", JLabel.CENTER));

    for (Component c : frame.getContentPane().getComponents()) {
        if (c instanceof JLabel) {
            ((JLabel) c).setText("Friend");
            c.setForeground(Color.RED);
        }
    }

    frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
    frame.setSize(400, 300);
    frame.setVisible(true);
}

Output: