java.lang.IllegalStateException: This widget's parent does not implement HasWidgets

[Cameron Wallace McKenzie]

Ok, I'm loving GWT, but the Google Web Toolkit is kicking out this message when I run a new Composite class. Any quick hints?

-Cameron McKenzie

[Cameron Wallace McKenzie]

Ugh...I hate it when the error message actually tells you what is wrong!

java.lang.IllegalStateException: This widget's parent does not implement HasWidgets

Apparently, I was using a class that extends composite, as the books I’m reading suggest. But, if you do, apparently if you add the composite to another page as though it were a panel, well, that won’t work. Either I should have extended a Panel class for my composite container, or I need to implement the HasWidgets interface.

import com.google.gwt.user.client.ui.HasWidgets;

Apparently, these are the methods involved in the HasWidgets interaface. The actually look like they make sense:

@Override
public void add(Widget w) {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
}

@Override
public void clear() {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
}

@Override
public Iterator<Widget> iterator() {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
return null;
}

@Override
public boolean remove(Widget w) {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
return false;
}

I’m just going to leave them blank for now and see if it works.

[Cameron Wallace McKenzie]

So, one of the problems I think I was having was the fact that I was constantly creating new components by extending Composite. What I'm really finding is that I should just be extending various Panel classes, like VerticalPanel, Grid, or even just extending MenuBar. From there, I can just access the 'this' of the component, configure the component directly, and other Google Web Toolkit Widgets can interact seamlessly with those components.

So, it seems that I could have avoided many of these problems by just extending some of the delicious GWT classes, as opposed to constantly creating Component classes.

Hope that helps someone else with similar growing pains.

-Cameron McKenzie

[Rajeev Turlapati]

Thanks a lot.I was a little worried about the exception. I extended MenuBar and removed the initWidget method for my Horizontal split panel.
works