How to fill text fields with selection from JList

[john lampard]

I have an addressBook GUI where I have a JList that populates with the contacts names, and once I double click a contacts name I'm wanting to fill the textfields with the contacts corresponding data.

ex) ContactType: Family (enum), Name: Zoidberg, Address: 111 Space Drive, City: New York City, etc...

I've got it to where I select open from the JMenu, it populates the JList, but once I select a contacts name, all the textfields are populated, but only with the contacts name

ex) Name: Zoidberg, Address: Zoidberg, City: Zoidberg, etc....

What am i doing wrong here, and how can i fix it to where it fills out the correct data?

Here's my code so far:

public class AddressBookGUI extends JFrame
{	
	    
    private final int WIDTH = 450;
    private final int HEIGHT = 300;
    private JLabel currentlySelected;
    private JTextField contactTypeTextField;
    private JTextField nameTextField;   
    private JTextField streetAddressTextField;   
    private JTextField cityTextField;
    private JTextField stateTextField;
    private JTextField zipTextField;
    private JTextField phoneTextField; 
    private JTextField emailTextField;
    private JTextField photoTextField;
    private JList nameList ;   
    private DefaultListModel model;
    private JTextArea statusTextArea;   
    private AddressBook addressBook; 
    private JButton addButton;
    private JButton editButton;
    private JButton sortByZipButton;
    private JMenuItem addItem;
    private JMenuItem openItem;
    private JMenuItem saveItem;
    private JMenuItem exitItem;
    private JMenuItem editContactItem;
    private JMenuItem aboutItem;
    private JMenuItem deleteItem;
    private JComboBox<String> jComboStates;
    private JComboBox <Enum> jComboContactType;
   
    private String [] readStates()
	{
	
		ArrayList<String> array = new ArrayList<>();
		try
		{
			FileInputStream fStream = new FileInputStream ("States.txt");
			BufferedReader buffer = new BufferedReader (new InputStreamReader (fStream));
			String strLine;
			while ((strLine = buffer.readLine()) != null)
			{
				
				String line = buffer.readLine();
				String [] state = line.split ("\n");
				array.add(strLine);
			}
			buffer.close();
		}
		catch (Exception e)
		{
			
		}
		return array.toArray(new String[array.size()]);
	}

	private  ArrayList<String> readContacts()
	{
		File cFile = new File ("Contacts.txt");
		BufferedReader buffer = null;
		ArrayList <String> contact = new ArrayList<String>();
		try
		{
			buffer = new BufferedReader (new FileReader (cFile));
			String fullName;
			ContactType type;
			String sep;
			String address, city, state, zip, phone, email, photo;
			while ((sep = buffer.readLine()) != null)
			{
				
				String [] info = sep.split (",");
				type = ContactType.valueOf (info[0]);
				fullName = info[1];
				address = info[2];
				city = info[3];
				state = info[4];
				zip = info[5];
				phone = info[6];
				email = info[7];
				photo = info [8];
				contact.add(fullName);
			}		
		}
		catch (FileNotFoundException e)
		{
			
		}
		catch (IOException k)
		{
			
		}
		return contact;

// code that declares all labels, textfields, menus, and buttons

     openItem.addActionListener (new ActionListener()
        {
        	public void actionPerformed (ActionEvent e)
        	{
        		readContacts();
                for (String name :readContacts())
                {
                	model.addElement(name);
                }
               
                nameList = new JList (model);
                add(nameList);
                nameList.setVisibleRowCount(10);
                nameList.setSelectionMode(ListSelectionModel.SINGLE_SELECTION);
                nameList.setFixedCellHeight (20);
                nameList.setFixedCellWidth (130);
                
                JPanel left = new JPanel(new BorderLayout());
                left.add (new JScrollPane(nameList), BorderLayout.NORTH);
                add (left, BorderLayout.WEST);
                
                nameList.setBorder (BorderFactory.createLineBorder(Color.BLACK,1));
               nameList.addListSelectionListener (new ListSelectionListener()
                {	
                	public void valueChanged (ListSelectionEvent e)
                	{
                		if (e.getValueIsAdjusting ( ) == false)
                		{	
                			List <String> string = nameList.getSelectedValuesList();		
                		}
                	}
                	
                });
                MouseListener mouseListener = new MouseAdapter() {
                    public void mouseClicked(MouseEvent e) {
                        if (e.getClickCount() == 2) {
                            int index = nameList.locationToIndex(e.getPoint());
                            if (nameList.getModel().getElementAt(index) != null && nameList.getModel().getElementAt(index) instanceof String)
                            {  	
                            	nameTextField.setText((String) nameList.getModel().getElementAt (index));
                            	streetAddressTextField.setText((String) nameList.getModel().getElementAt (index));
                            	cityTextField.setText((String) nameList.getModel().getElementAt (index));
                            	//stateTextField.setText((String) nameList.getModel().getElementAt (index));
                            	zipTextField.setText((String) nameList.getModel().getElementAt (index));
                            	phoneTextField.setText((String) nameList.getModel().getElementAt (index));
                            	emailTextField.setText((String) nameList.getModel().getElementAt (index));
                            	photoTextField.setText((String) nameList.getModel().getElementAt (index));	
                            }
                         }
                    }
                };
                nameList.addMouseListener(mouseListener);
        	}
        	
        });
	}

I'm certain the logic is messed up near the end where i set all text fields to the index, because no matter what field i want to fill it's at it's going to set it to whatever index I select, but I don't know how to fix it, any help would be great, Thanks.

[Paul Clapham]

You'd have to store it somewhere, instead of just reading it from the Contacts.txt file and ignoring it. I would recommend putting each contact's information into a Contact object (which you would write a data-access class to represent) and also create a Map whose keys are names and whose values are Contact objects. Then double-clicking on a list entry would take the name, find the associated Contact object from the map, and get the data from that Contact object to put into the text fields.

By the way the usual way to select something from a JList is to just single-click on the JList entry. If you do that then you could use an ordinary ListSelectionListener instead of having to hack around with MouseListeners. But that's a topic for after you get your basic design fixed up.

[Rob Camick]

Crossposted: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/30005687/how-would-i-fill-my-textfields-after-i-select-an-item-from-jlist

The answer was given 4 hours ago.

[Steve Beckle]

Make each item in the list a an object that contains all the information for a contact, i.e. when you read in a string of info, parse it into different values, each of which is a member of the contact object. You can create each object by passing the data values to the object's constructor. You might also want to consider overriding the toString() method in the object to define what you see in the list. When you click a list item, you now have access to the object that represents the entire entity.

[john lampard]

Make each item in the list a an object that contains all the information for a contact, i.e. when you read in a string of info, parse it into different values, each of which is a member of the contact object. You can create each object by passing the data values to the object's constructor. You might also want to consider overriding the toString() method in the object to define what you see in the list. When you click a list item, you now have access to the object that represents the entire entity.

Would I go about it something like this?

Contact c;
 while ((sep = buffer.readLine()) != null)
            {
                 
                String [] info = sep.split (",");
                type = ContactType.valueOf (info[0]);
                fullName = info[1];
                address = info[2];
                city = info[3];
                state = info[4];
                zip = info[5];
                phone = info[6];
                email = info[7];
                photo = info [8];

                c=new Contact(type, name, address, city, state, zip, phone, email, photo);
                contact.add(c);
            }       
        }

[Steve Beckle]

Yes, this is what I had in mind. Your list model will now contain these contact objects that contain all of the info for the contact. When you select the entry in the list, your list selection model will allow you to get the selected item, which, if you parameterize your list model properly, will automatically be a Contact object. You can always make a list/combo box hold any kind of object you want to, and as I mentioned before, if you override the toString() method for the Contact object, you can have your list display anything you want. For example,

@Override
public String toString()
{
    return lastName + "," + firstName;
}

I would also parameterize my list model:

DefaultListModel<Contact> model;

That ensures type safety, (you can only add Contact objects to the list model) and when you work with a list selection object, you know you're dealing with a Contact object and don't have to do any casting.

[john lampard]

This is just frustrating the brain cells out of me, so i've modified my read method to look like this.

public static void loadFile() 
		{

			File file = new File ("Contacts.txt");
			Scanner scan = null;
			try
			{
				scan = new Scanner (file);
			}
			catch (Exception e)
			{
				JOptionPane.showMessageDialog (null, "Error");
			}
			String line = null;
			ContactType type;
			//ArrayList <String> contact = new ArrayList<String>();
			while (scan.hasNext())
			{
				String [] info = line.split (",");
				type = ContactType.valueOf (info[0]);
				model = new DefaultListModel<Contact>();
				Contact newContact = new Contact (type, info[1],info[2],info[3],info[4],info[5],info[6],info[7],info[8]);
				model.addElement(newContact);
			}	

then added the open action listener in the JMenu, which is here.

class openFileListener implements ActionListener
		{
			/** 
			 * actionPerformed method .
			 *
			 * <hr>
			 * Date created: May 01, 2015
			 * <hr>
			 * @author Richie Nguyen
			 */
			public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) 
			{	
				loadFile();
				
				contactList.setListData(addressBook.getContactList());
			}
		}

contactList, is my JList, and getContactList method is in my AddressBook class which looks like

public Contact[] getContactList()
		{
			return this.list.toArray( new Contact[this.list.size()] );
		}

list here being an ArrayList <Contacts>.

Whenever I run the program, and try to open the file, I get a load of errors, here's a snippet of that:

Exception in thread "AWT-EventQueue-0" java.lang.NullPointerException
	at addressBook.AddyGUI.loadFile(AddyGUI.java:708)
	at addressBook.AddyGUI$openFileListener.actionPerformed(AddyGUI.java:367)
	

line 708 is where I declare String [] info = line. split(",");
and line 367 is where I call the loadFile();

What am I doing wrong here, please help!!

[Rob Camick]

Why do you have a List of Contacts? The DefaultListModel holds all your Contacts.

If you want a specific contact when the user clicks on the list you get the contact from the ListModel or from the JList itself.

That is the selected item will be the Contact that was selected.

[john lampard]

Rob Camick wrote:Why do you have a List of Contacts? The DefaultListModel holds all your Contacts.

If you want a specific contact when the user clicks on the list you get the contact from the ListModel or from the JList itself.

That is the selected item will be the Contact that was selected.

So, my contactsList would do the displaying, and if I select something I should call from the DefaultListModel?

[Rob Camick]

Well you can use the JList.getSelectedValue() method which will get the data from the DefaultListModel for you.

[john lampard]

Rob Camick wrote:Well you can use the JList.getSelectedValue() method which will get the data from the DefaultListModel for you.

That's what i'm doing, but my problem is actually trying to populate the list with my contacts names.

[Rob Camick]

Look at your code:

            String line = null;
            ContactType type;
            //ArrayList <String> contact = new ArrayList<String>();
            while (scan.hasNext())
            {
                String [] info = line.split (",");

You assign null to the line variable.

[john lampard]

Rob Camick wrote:Look at your code:

            String line = null;
            ContactType type;
            //ArrayList <String> contact = new ArrayList<String>();
            while (scan.hasNext())
            {
                String [] info = line.split (",");

You assign null to the line variable.

If I don't assign it to anything, I'll get an error saying "line" may not have been initialized.

[Paul Clapham]

john lampard wrote:If I don't assign it to anything, I'll get an error saying "line" may not have been initialized.

Yeah... but you should initialize it to something which isn't pointless. In particular if you're about to scan through it and split it based on commas, you should initialize it to something which is going to have some commas in it. Presumably you've already got a string like that somewhere?

[john lampard]

No, this part of the code is the only part where I declare an actual string, all the others would be an array or arraylist of strings, I don't get it because my readStates method handles that problem fine.

private String [] readStates()
		{
		
			ArrayList<String> array = new ArrayList<>();
			try
			{
				FileInputStream fStream = new FileInputStream ("States.txt");
				BufferedReader buffer = new BufferedReader (new InputStreamReader (fStream));
				String strLine;
				while ((strLine = buffer.readLine()) != null)
				{
					
					String line = buffer.readLine();
					String [] state = line.split ("\n");
					array.add(strLine);
				}
				buffer.close();
			}
			catch (Exception e)
			{
				
			}
			return array.toArray(new String[array.size()]);
			
		}

[Rob Camick]

because my readStates method handles that problem fine.

Well, the readStates() method actually reads some text into the variable.

In your other code you set the variable to null and never add any text to the variable!!! Data doesn't just magically appear in the variable.

[john lampard]

Rob Camick wrote:
Well, the readStates() method actually reads some text into the variable.

In your other code you set the variable to null and never add any text to the variable!!! Data doesn't just magically appear in the variable.

Gotcha change it to this:

   File cFile = new File ("Contacts.txt");
	        Scanner scan;
	        try
	        {
	            scan = new Scanner (cFile);
	            String line;
	            while (scan.hasNext())
	            {   line = scan.nextLine ( );
	                String [] name = line.split (",");
	                ContactType type = ContactType.valueOf (name[0]);
	                Contact newContact = new Contact (type, name[1],name[2],name[3],name[4],name[5],name[6],name[7],name[8]);
	                this.list.add(newContact);
	            }    
	            scan.close ( );
	        }

Still nothing is coming up when i activate the openFile listener.