Java Tip 142: Pushing JButtonGroup

Swing has many useful classes that make graphical user interface (GUI) development easy. Some of these classes, however, are not well implemented. One example of such a class is ButtonGroup. This article explains why ButtonGroup is poorly designed and offers a replacement class, JButtonGroup, which inherits from ButtonGroup and fixes some of its problems.

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ButtonGroup holes

Here’s a common scenario in Swing GUI development: You build a form to gather data about items that someone will enter into a database or save to a file. The form might contain text boxes, check boxes, radio buttons, and other widgets. You use the ButtonGroup class to group all radio buttons that need single selection. When the form design is ready, you start to implement the form data. You encounter the set of radio buttons, and you need to know which button in the group was selected so you can store the appropriate information into the database or file. You’re now stuck. Why? The ButtonGroup class does not give you a reference to the button currently selected in the group.

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