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Trail: Creating a GUI with JFC/Swing
Lesson: Writing Event Listeners

How to Write an Item Listener

Item events are fired by components that implement the ItemSelectable (in the API reference documentation) interface. Generally, ItemSelectable components maintain on/off state for one or more items. The Swing components that fire item events include check boxes (in the Creating a GUI with JFC/Swing trail), check box menu items (in the Creating a GUI with JFC/Swing trail), and combo boxes (in the Creating a GUI with JFC/Swing trail).

Here is some item-event handling code taken from ComponentEventDemo.java (in a .java source file):

//where initialization occurs
checkbox.addItemListener(this);
...
public void itemStateChanged(ItemEvent e) {
    if (e.getStateChange() == ItemEvent.SELECTED) {
        label.setVisible(true);
        ...
    } else {
        label.setVisible(false);
    }
}

The Item Listener API

The ItemListener Interface

Because ItemListener has only one method, it has no corresponding adapter class.
Method Purpose
itemStateChanged(ItemEvent) Called just after a state change in the listened-to component.

The ItemEvent Class

Method Purpose
Object getItem() Returns the component-specific object associated with the item whose state changed. Often this is a String containing the text on the selected item.
ItemSelectable getItemSelectable() Returns the component that fired the item event. You can use this instead of the getSource method.
int getStateChange() Returns the new state of the item. The ItemEvent class defines two states: SELECTED and DESELECTED.

Examples that Use Item Listeners

The following table lists some examples that use item listeners.

Example Where Described Notes
ComponentEventDemo This section and How to Write a Component Listener Listens for item events on a check box, which determines whether a lable is visible.
CheckBoxDemo How to Use Check Boxes (in the Creating a GUI with JFC/Swing trail) Four check boxes share one item listener, which uses getItemSelected to determine which check box fired the event.
MenuDemo How to Use Menus (in the Creating a GUI with JFC/Swing trail) Listens for item events on a check box menu item.
MenuDemo How to Use Scroll Panes (in the Creating a GUI with JFC/Swing trail) Listens for item events on a toggle button.


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