What I am trying to do is this, when I enter the details it will validate if the textFiled is empty when a button is pressed, if it is empty it will display a message saying tha
I recommend that you use an InputVerifier as this will verify that the contents of the JTextField are correct (any way that you wish to define this) before allowing you to even leave the JTextField. Now it won't stop you from pressing other JButtons and whatnot, so you'll need to take other precautions if you have a submit button. An example of a simple InputVerifier that checks to see if the JTextField is empty is shown below:
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import javax.swing.*;
@SuppressWarnings("serial")
public class InputVerifierExample extends JPanel {
public static final Color WARNING_COLOR = Color.red;
private JTextField firstNameField = new JTextField(10);
private JTextField middleNameField = new JTextField(10);
private JTextField lastNameField = new JTextField(10);
private JTextField[] nameFields = {
firstNameField,
middleNameField,
lastNameField };
private JLabel warningLabel = new JLabel(" ");
public InputVerifierExample() {
warningLabel.setOpaque(true);
JPanel namePanel = new JPanel();
namePanel.add(new JLabel("Name:"));
MyInputVerifier verifier = new MyInputVerifier();
for (JTextField field : nameFields) {
field.setInputVerifier(verifier);
namePanel.add(field);
}
namePanel.add(new JButton(new SubmitBtnAction()));
setLayout(new BorderLayout());
add(namePanel, BorderLayout.CENTER);
add(warningLabel, BorderLayout.SOUTH);
}
private class SubmitBtnAction extends AbstractAction {
public SubmitBtnAction() {
super("Submit");
}
@Override
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
// first check all fields aren't empty
for (JTextField field : nameFields) {
if (field.getText().trim().isEmpty()) {
return; // return if empty
}
}
String name = "";
for (JTextField field : nameFields) {
name += field.getText() + " ";
field.setText("");
}
name = name.trim();
JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(InputVerifierExample.this, name, "Name Entered",
JOptionPane.INFORMATION_MESSAGE);
}
}
private class MyInputVerifier extends InputVerifier {
@Override
public boolean verify(JComponent input) {
JTextField field = (JTextField) input;
if (field.getText().trim().isEmpty()) {
warningLabel.setText("Please do not leave this field empty");
warningLabel.setBackground(WARNING_COLOR);
return false;
}
warningLabel.setText("");
warningLabel.setBackground(null);
return true;
}
}
private static void createAndShowGui() {
JFrame frame = new JFrame("InputVerifier Example");
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
frame.getContentPane().add(new InputVerifierExample());
frame.pack();
frame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
frame.setVisible(true);
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
createAndShowGui();
}
});
}
}