Passing ArrayList<Character> to a grid of JButtons

[jumpgirl]

Hi, I'm a 2nd year Computer Science student. My specialization is Instructional Systems Technology that is why I didn't get to practice java that much and now, I already experiencing problems with it.
My problem is I need to pass an array of random characters to a grid of jbuttons, since we are asked to do a word factory simulation. I thought that making a grid of jbuttons would be good but I can't seem to pass the contents of the array in my random.java in the grid of jbuttons. Can anyone please help me? I'm stuck in this part and I still need to to the searching algorithms for this project.

This is my code.

random.java

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Collection;
import java.util.Random;


public class random {
	ArrayList<Character> c1  = new ArrayList<Character>();
	public char c;
	
	public void randomNum(){   
	    Random rand = new Random(); 
		
    for (int j = 1; j<=100; j++)
    	
    {
      //pick = rand.nextInt(25)+ 0;
      c =(char)(rand.nextInt('Z'-'A' +1) + 'A'); 
      c1.add(c);
      System.out.println("num " + j + ": " + c1);    
      
    } 
 }
    
    public ArrayList<Character> getArray(){
    	return c1;
       
  }
	
	
	
}

grid.java

import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.Container;
import java.awt.FlowLayout;
import java.awt.GridLayout;
import java.util.ArrayList;

import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.border.CompoundBorder;
import javax.swing.border.EmptyBorder;

public class grid {
	JFrame frame = new JFrame("Word Factory");
	
	
	public grid(int width, int height, int hgap, int vgap){
		
		((JPanel) frame.getContentPane()).setBorder(new CompoundBorder(
			        new EmptyBorder(30, 30, 60, 200), new SolidBorder()));
		 
		JButton[][] grid;
		frame.setSize(1024, 710);
	    Container content = frame.getContentPane();
	    content.setBackground(Color.white);
	    content.setLayout(new FlowLayout()); 
	    
	    frame.addWindowListener(new ExitListener());
		
		frame.setLayout(new GridLayout(width,height, hgap, vgap));
		
		
		random ran = new random();
		System.out.println(ran.c1);
		//ArrayList<Character> list = ran.getArray();
		
	         grid=new JButton[width][height]; 
        for(int y=0; y<height; y++){
                for(int x=0; x<width; x++){
                        
                	grid[x][y]=new JButton("("+x+","+y+")");  
                	
                	
                        //ArrayList j = ran.getArray();
                   
                	//grid[x][y]=new JButton(""+list.get(x)+"");//need to fix
                	//grid[x][y]=new JButton(""+j.toString()+"");
                	 
                     frame.add(grid[x][y]); 
                }
		
        frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE); 
        frame.setVisible(true);
		
	}
		
		
}
}

[ozzyman]

Well, here is a pretty fast way to get that done:

class RandomButton extends JButton {
  int number;
  RandomButton(String label, int randomNo) {
    super(label);
    number = randomNo;
  }
  public int getNumber() {
    return number;
  }
}

Then all you'd have to do is initialise each button like this:

RandomButton button = new RandomButton("("+x+","+y+")", rand.nextInt(25));
int number = button.getNumber();

[ozzyman]

I just realised the purpose was to pass a char rather than an int... well, you could do it the same way as in the example above.

[jumpgirl]

thank you for your help :)
i have another question. How can I display the random generated characters in each of the jbuttons?

[jumpgirl]

nevermind i solved it :)

[jumpgirl]

here is my new code
i got another problem. The grid is supposed to be 10 by 10 but what happens is that the size of the grid also became a bit random like 9x10 or something like that. I defined the size in my main but it is not working properly. Also, I tried hard coding the width and the height part in the loop in the grid.java but it doesn't work

grid.java

//letter-grid
import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.Container;
import java.awt.FlowLayout;
import java.awt.GridLayout;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Random;

import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.border.CompoundBorder;
import javax.swing.border.EmptyBorder;

public class grid {
	JFrame frame = new JFrame("Word Factory");
	
	
	public grid(int width, int height, int hgap, int vgap){
		
		((JPanel) frame.getContentPane()).setBorder(new CompoundBorder(
			        new EmptyBorder(30, 30, 60, 200), new SolidBorder()));
		 
		JButton[][] grid;
		frame.setSize(1024, 710);
	    Container content = frame.getContentPane();
	    content.setBackground(Color.white);
	    content.setLayout(new FlowLayout()); 
	    frame.addWindowListener(new ExitListener());
		frame.setLayout(new GridLayout(width, height, hgap, vgap));
		frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE); 
        frame.setVisible(true);
        
		grid=new JButton[width][height]; //allocate the size of grid
		
		Random rand = new Random();
		
        for(int y=0; y<height; y++){
                for(int x=0; x<width; x++){
                	              	
                 	//RandomButton button = new RandomButton("("+x+","+y+")", (char)(rand.nextInt('Z'-'A' +1) + 'A'));
                	RandomButton button = new RandomButton(""+(char)(rand.nextInt('Z'-'A' +1) + 'A')+"");
                	//char letter = button.getCharacter();
                	  
                	frame.add(button);
                 	
                	//frame.add(grid[x][y]); //adds button to grid
                }
		
        
		
	}
		
		
}
}

main.java

public static void main(String args[]){
				
	    new main().readFromFile("dictionary.txt");
		/*random ran = new random();
		ran.randomNum();*/
		
		//ran.randomNum1();
	    grid g = new grid(10,10, 3, 3);
	    
	    	
	}

[ozzyman]

Its probably an issue where one of the last buttons are failing to initialise and causing the method to stop.

Did you have any messages in your debugger?

I would separate the char code and print it out to see what you are getting, like this:

for (...) {
  for (...) {
    char c = (char) rand.nextInt('Z'-'A' +1) + 'A');
    System.out.print(c + ", ");
    frame.add(new RandomButton(c));
  }
  System.out.println();
}

[jumpgirl]

i tried your code and there is an error because the parameter in RandomButton is a String

frame.add(new RandomButton(c));

[ozzyman]

Where is your updated RandomButton class?

If you're accepting a String in the constructor you can convert a char to a String like this:

char c = 'A';
String s = "" + c;

[jumpgirl]

I already solved my problem. I replaced JButtons with JTextFields. Is it possible to add another JTextField or buttons outside the grid that I made?

[ozzyman]

You need another class which would be your main window, in that window add the grid and the JTextField.