Java™ Platform
Standard Ed. 6

javax.swing
Interface Action

All Superinterfaces:
ActionListener, EventListener
All Known Implementing Classes:
AbstractAction, BasicDesktopPaneUI.CloseAction, BasicDesktopPaneUI.MaximizeAction, BasicDesktopPaneUI.MinimizeAction, BasicDesktopPaneUI.NavigateAction, BasicDesktopPaneUI.OpenAction, BasicFileChooserUI.ApproveSelectionAction, BasicFileChooserUI.CancelSelectionAction, BasicFileChooserUI.ChangeToParentDirectoryAction, BasicFileChooserUI.GoHomeAction, BasicFileChooserUI.NewFolderAction, BasicFileChooserUI.UpdateAction, BasicInternalFrameTitlePane.CloseAction, BasicInternalFrameTitlePane.IconifyAction, BasicInternalFrameTitlePane.MaximizeAction, BasicInternalFrameTitlePane.MoveAction, BasicInternalFrameTitlePane.RestoreAction, BasicInternalFrameTitlePane.SizeAction, BasicSliderUI.ActionScroller, BasicTreeUI.TreeCancelEditingAction, BasicTreeUI.TreeHomeAction, BasicTreeUI.TreeIncrementAction, BasicTreeUI.TreePageAction, BasicTreeUI.TreeToggleAction, BasicTreeUI.TreeTraverseAction, DefaultEditorKit.BeepAction, DefaultEditorKit.CopyAction, DefaultEditorKit.CutAction, DefaultEditorKit.DefaultKeyTypedAction, DefaultEditorKit.InsertBreakAction, DefaultEditorKit.InsertContentAction, DefaultEditorKit.InsertTabAction, DefaultEditorKit.PasteAction, HTMLEditorKit.HTMLTextAction, HTMLEditorKit.InsertHTMLTextAction, MetalFileChooserUI.DirectoryComboBoxAction, StyledEditorKit.AlignmentAction, StyledEditorKit.BoldAction, StyledEditorKit.FontFamilyAction, StyledEditorKit.FontSizeAction, StyledEditorKit.ForegroundAction, StyledEditorKit.ItalicAction, StyledEditorKit.StyledTextAction, StyledEditorKit.UnderlineAction, TextAction

public interface Action
extends ActionListener

The Action interface provides a useful extension to the ActionListener interface in cases where the same functionality may be accessed by several controls.

In addition to the actionPerformed method defined by the ActionListener interface, this interface allows the application to define, in a single place:

This interface can be added to an existing class or used to create an adapter (typically, by subclassing AbstractAction). The Action object can then be added to multiple Action-aware containers and connected to Action-capable components. The GUI controls can then be activated or deactivated all at once by invoking the Action object's setEnabled method.

Note that Action implementations tend to be more expensive in terms of storage than a typical ActionListener, which does not offer the benefits of centralized control of functionality and broadcast of property changes. For this reason, you should take care to only use Actions where their benefits are desired, and use simple ActionListeners elsewhere.

Swing Components Supporting Action

Many of Swing's components have an Action property. When an Action is set on a component, the following things happen:

The following table describes the properties used by Swing components that support Actions. In the table, button refers to any AbstractButton subclass, which includes not only JButton but also classes such as JMenuItem. Unless otherwise stated, a null property value in an Action (or a Action that is null) results in the button's corresponding property being set to null.

Component Property Components Action Key Notes
enabled All The isEnabled method  
toolTipText All SHORT_DESCRIPTION  
actionCommand All ACTION_COMMAND_KEY  
mnemonic All buttons MNEMONIC_KEY A null value or Action results in the button's mnemonic property being set to '\0'.
text All buttons NAME If you do not want the text of the button to mirror that of the Action, set the property hideActionText to true. If hideActionText is true, setting the Action changes the text of the button to null and any changes to NAME are ignored. hideActionText is useful for tool bar buttons that typically only show an Icon. JToolBar.add(Action) sets the property to true if the Action has a non-null value for LARGE_ICON_KEY or SMALL_ICON.
displayedMnemonicIndex All buttons DISPLAYED_MNEMONIC_INDEX_KEY If the value of DISPLAYED_MNEMONIC_INDEX_KEY is beyond the bounds of the text, it is ignored. When setAction is called, if the value from the Action is null, the displayed mnemonic index is not updated. In any subsequent changes to DISPLAYED_MNEMONIC_INDEX_KEY, null is treated as -1.
icon All buttons except of JCheckBox, JToggleButton and JRadioButton. either LARGE_ICON_KEY or SMALL_ICON The JMenuItem subclasses only use SMALL_ICON. All other buttons will use LARGE_ICON_KEY; if the value is null they use SMALL_ICON.
accelerator All JMenuItem subclasses, with the exception of JMenu. ACCELERATOR_KEY  
selected JToggleButton, JCheckBox, JRadioButton, JCheckBoxMenuItem and JRadioButtonMenuItem SELECTED_KEY Components that honor this property only use the value if it is non-null. For example, if you set an Action that has a null value for SELECTED_KEY on a JToggleButton, the JToggleButton will not update it's selected state in any way. Similarly, any time the JToggleButton's selected state changes it will only set the value back on the Action if the Action has a non-null value for SELECTED_KEY.
Components that honor this property keep their selected state in sync with this property. When the same Action is used with multiple components, all the components keep their selected state in sync with this property. Mutually exclusive buttons, such as JToggleButtons in a ButtonGroup, force only one of the buttons to be selected. As such, do not use the same Action that defines a value for the SELECTED_KEY property with multiple mutually exclusive buttons.

JPopupMenu, JToolBar and JMenu all provide convenience methods for creating a component and setting the Action on the corresponding component. Refer to each of these classes for more information.

Action uses PropertyChangeListener to inform listeners the Action has changed. The beans specification indicates that a null property name can be used to indicate multiple values have changed. By default Swing components that take an Action do not handle such a change. To indicate that Swing should treat null according to the beans specification set the system property swing.actions.reconfigureOnNull to the String value true.

See Also:
AbstractAction

Field Summary
static String ACCELERATOR_KEY
          The key used for storing a KeyStroke to be used as the accelerator for the action.
static String ACTION_COMMAND_KEY
          The key used to determine the command String for the ActionEvent that will be created when an Action is going to be notified as the result of residing in a Keymap associated with a JComponent.
static String DEFAULT
          Not currently used.
static String DISPLAYED_MNEMONIC_INDEX_KEY
          The key used for storing an Integer that corresponds to the index in the text (identified by the NAME property) that the decoration for a mnemonic should be rendered at.
static String LARGE_ICON_KEY
          The key used for storing an Icon.
static String LONG_DESCRIPTION
          The key used for storing a longer String description for the action, could be used for context-sensitive help.
static String MNEMONIC_KEY
          The key used for storing an Integer that corresponds to one of the KeyEvent key codes.
static String NAME
          The key used for storing the String name for the action, used for a menu or button.
static String SELECTED_KEY
          The key used for storing a Boolean that corresponds to the selected state.
static String SHORT_DESCRIPTION
          The key used for storing a short String description for the action, used for tooltip text.
static String SMALL_ICON
          The key used for storing a small Icon, such as ImageIcon.
 
Method Summary
 void addPropertyChangeListener(PropertyChangeListener listener)
          Adds a PropertyChange listener.
 Object getValue(String key)
          Gets one of this object's properties using the associated key.
 boolean isEnabled()
          Returns the enabled state of the Action.
 void putValue(String key, Object value)
          Sets one of this object's properties using the associated key.
 void removePropertyChangeListener(PropertyChangeListener listener)
          Removes a PropertyChange listener.
 void setEnabled(boolean b)
          Sets the enabled state of the Action.
 
Methods inherited from interface java.awt.event.ActionListener
actionPerformed
 

Field Detail

DEFAULT

static final String DEFAULT
Not currently used.

See Also:
Constant Field Values

NAME

static final String NAME
The key used for storing the String name for the action, used for a menu or button.

See Also:
Constant Field Values

SHORT_DESCRIPTION

static final String SHORT_DESCRIPTION
The key used for storing a short String description for the action, used for tooltip text.

See Also:
Constant Field Values

LONG_DESCRIPTION

static final String LONG_DESCRIPTION
The key used for storing a longer String description for the action, could be used for context-sensitive help.

See Also:
Constant Field Values

SMALL_ICON

static final String SMALL_ICON
The key used for storing a small Icon, such as ImageIcon. This is typically used with menus such as JMenuItem.

If the same Action is used with menus and buttons you'll typically specify both a SMALL_ICON and a LARGE_ICON_KEY. The menu will use the SMALL_ICON and the button will use the LARGE_ICON_KEY.

See Also:
Constant Field Values

ACTION_COMMAND_KEY

static final String ACTION_COMMAND_KEY
The key used to determine the command String for the ActionEvent that will be created when an Action is going to be notified as the result of residing in a Keymap associated with a JComponent.

See Also:
Constant Field Values

ACCELERATOR_KEY

static final String ACCELERATOR_KEY
The key used for storing a KeyStroke to be used as the accelerator for the action.

Since:
1.3
See Also:
Constant Field Values

MNEMONIC_KEY

static final String MNEMONIC_KEY
The key used for storing an Integer that corresponds to one of the KeyEvent key codes. The value is commonly used to specify a mnemonic. For example: myAction.putValue(Action.MNEMONIC_KEY, KeyEvent.VK_A) sets the mnemonic of myAction to 'a'.

Since:
1.3
See Also:
Constant Field Values

SELECTED_KEY

static final String SELECTED_KEY
The key used for storing a Boolean that corresponds to the selected state. This is typically used only for components that have a meaningful selection state. For example, JRadioButton and JCheckBox make use of this but instances of JMenu don't.

This property differs from the others in that it is both read by the component and set by the component. For example, if an Action is attached to a JCheckBox the selected state of the JCheckBox will be set from that of the Action. If the user clicks on the JCheckBox the selected state of the JCheckBox and the Action will both be updated.

Note: the value of this field is prefixed with 'Swing' to avoid possible collisions with existing Actions.

Since:
1.6
See Also:
Constant Field Values

DISPLAYED_MNEMONIC_INDEX_KEY

static final String DISPLAYED_MNEMONIC_INDEX_KEY
The key used for storing an Integer that corresponds to the index in the text (identified by the NAME property) that the decoration for a mnemonic should be rendered at. If the value of this property is greater than or equal to the length of the text, it will treated as -1.

Note: the value of this field is prefixed with 'Swing' to avoid possible collisions with existing Actions.

Since:
1.6
See Also:
AbstractButton.setDisplayedMnemonicIndex(int), Constant Field Values

LARGE_ICON_KEY

static final String LARGE_ICON_KEY
The key used for storing an Icon. This is typically used by buttons, such as JButton and JToggleButton.

If the same Action is used with menus and buttons you'll typically specify both a SMALL_ICON and a LARGE_ICON_KEY. The menu will use the SMALL_ICON and the button the LARGE_ICON_KEY.

Note: the value of this field is prefixed with 'Swing' to avoid possible collisions with existing Actions.

Since:
1.6
See Also:
Constant Field Values
Method Detail

getValue

Object getValue(String key)
Gets one of this object's properties using the associated key.

See Also:
putValue(java.lang.String, java.lang.Object)

putValue

void putValue(String key,
              Object value)
Sets one of this object's properties using the associated key. If the value has changed, a PropertyChangeEvent is sent to listeners.

Parameters:
key - a String containing the key
value - an Object value

setEnabled

void setEnabled(boolean b)
Sets the enabled state of the Action. When enabled, any component associated with this object is active and able to fire this object's actionPerformed method. If the value has changed, a PropertyChangeEvent is sent to listeners.

Parameters:
b - true to enable this Action, false to disable it

isEnabled

boolean isEnabled()
Returns the enabled state of the Action. When enabled, any component associated with this object is active and able to fire this object's actionPerformed method.

Returns:
true if this Action is enabled

addPropertyChangeListener

void addPropertyChangeListener(PropertyChangeListener listener)
Adds a PropertyChange listener. Containers and attached components use these methods to register interest in this Action object. When its enabled state or other property changes, the registered listeners are informed of the change.

Parameters:
listener - a PropertyChangeListener object

removePropertyChangeListener

void removePropertyChangeListener(PropertyChangeListener listener)
Removes a PropertyChange listener.

Parameters:
listener - a PropertyChangeListener object
See Also:
addPropertyChangeListener(java.beans.PropertyChangeListener)

Java™ Platform
Standard Ed. 6

Submit a bug or feature
For further API reference and developer documentation, see Java SE Developer Documentation. That documentation contains more detailed, developer-targeted descriptions, with conceptual overviews, definitions of terms, workarounds, and working code examples.

Copyright 2006 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved. Use is subject to license terms. Also see the documentation redistribution policy.