Should I use setAction or addActionListener in Swing?

Question

I have a semi-theoretical problem involving Java and Swing. Swing components contain two options to respond to the user: setAction and addActionListener. These pertain to the Action and ActionListener objects, respectively.

My question is: which method, setAction or addActionListener, should I use? And how are they different from each other?

@lifus Thanks, closing. EDIT: This isn't actually a duplicate. Please don't cast your vote to close based on the fact that 2 votes exist. — sdasdadas, Jun 19 '13 at 21:27
`setAction(action)` will also call `addActionListener(action)` internally — DannyMo, Jun 19 '13 at 21:27
@meewoK We just went through this! :D It's not - this is the Swing framework. — sdasdadas, Jun 19 '13 at 21:32
How about this one: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15052225/what-is-better-to-use-action-vs-actionlistener Enjoy... this can easily be solved via googling!!!! — Menelaos, Jun 19 '13 at 21:33
@meewoK Hardly - it didn't come up in my SO query (or in the suggestions when I was writing the question). Nor did it come up on the first page and a half of my Google search. — sdasdadas, Jun 19 '13 at 21:37
@meewoK to be fair to the op, I search too (not very hard mind you) and didn't come up with anything either. — Daniel, Jun 19 '13 at 21:38

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 19 '13 at 21:34

Personal preference is to use Action where possible (it doesn't always make sense to do so). The main reasons are:

Simplifies the code. You don't end up with a actionPerformed method that is 100's of lines long with multiple if-else statements. The Action contains a specific operation to a specific class.
They are self contained (this is related to the previous point). All the information need to configure the UI elements is self-contained to the Action, making it easier and quicker to setup, not to mention consistent ;)
They are reusable, menus, buttons, key bindings, text fields.
They are extendable. You can create a basic concept of an action for a group and extended the base to provide the implementation requirements for individual actions (I do this a lot with key bindings)

IMHO

Thanks, accepting since it provides a bit of motivation (as opposed to docs only). — sdasdadas, Jun 19 '13 at 21:39

score 2 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:29

2

According to http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/uiswing/misc/action.html

An Action object is an action listener that provides not only action-event handling, but also centralized handling of the state of action-event-firing components such as tool bar buttons, menu items, common buttons, and text fields. The state that an action can handle includes text, icon, mnemonic, enabled, and selected status.

Looking at the linked documentation and this answer, it seems one reason to use Actions could be trying to use the same Action on several objects

edited May 23 '17 at 12:29

Community

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answered Jun 19 '13 at 21:31

Daniel

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Thanks for the answer - I accepted the other because this is fairly similar to the answer of the duplicate posted above. Also, the other one provides a bit of real world motivation. – sdasdadas Jun 19 '13 at 21:40

Should I use setAction or addActionListener in Swing?

2 Answers2