Java Swing Tutorial - Java Swing JToggleButton

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A JToggleButton is a two-state button. The two states are selected and unselected.

When we press the toggle button, it toggles between being depressed and undepressed.

A JButton is used to initiate an action whereas a JToggleButton is used to select a choice from a list of possible choices.

Typically, we use a group of JToggleButtons to let the user select one choice from a list of mutually exclusive choices.

We can use a combination of an Action object, a string label, an icon, and a boolean flag to indicate if it is selected by default to create JToggleButton.

Create a JToggleButton with no label and no image

JToggleButton tb1  = new JToggleButton(); 

Create JToggleButton with text as "My Choice"

JToggleButton tb2  = new JToggleButton("My Choice"); 

Create JToggleButton with text as "My Choice" and selected by default

JToggleButton tb3  = new JToggleButton("My Choice", true); 

To select/unselect a JToggleButton, to call setSelected() methods.

To check if it is selected, use their isSelected() methods.

The following code shows how to use these methods:

tb3.setSelected(true);      // Select tb3
boolean b1  = tb3.isSelected(); 
// will store true in b1 
tb3.setSelected(false);    // Unselect tb3
boolean b2  = tb3.isSelected(); // will store false in b2

If the selection is mutually exclusive, we must group all your choices in a button group. An instance of the ButtonGroup class represents a button group.

We can add and remove a JToggleButton to a button group by using its add() and remove() methods, respectively.

Initially all members of a button group are unselected.

To form a button group, we need to add all mutually exclusive choice components to an object of the ButtonGroup class. we do not add a ButtonGroup object to a container.

We must add all choice components to the container.

Action Listener

The following code shows how to listen to JToggleButton Events with an ActionListener.

import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
/*from ww w . j  a v a2s .  c o m*/
import javax.swing.AbstractButton;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JToggleButton;

public class Main {
  public static void main(String args[]) {
    JFrame frame = new JFrame("Selecting Toggle");
    frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
    JToggleButton toggleButton = new JToggleButton("Toggle Button");
    // Define ActionListener
    ActionListener actionListener = new ActionListener() {
      public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent actionEvent) {
        AbstractButton abstractButton = (AbstractButton) actionEvent.getSource();
        boolean selected = abstractButton.getModel().isSelected();
        System.out.println("Action - selected=" + selected + "\n");
      }
    };
    // Attach Listeners
    toggleButton.addActionListener(actionListener);
    frame.add(toggleButton, BorderLayout.NORTH);
    frame.setSize(300, 125);
    frame.setVisible(true);
  }
}

Item Listener

The following code shows how to listen to JToggleButton Events with an ItemListener.

import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.event.ItemEvent;
import java.awt.event.ItemListener;
// ww w.  j a  va 2  s. c om
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JToggleButton;

public class Main {
  public static void main(String args[]) {
    JFrame frame = new JFrame("Selecting Toggle");
    frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
    JToggleButton toggleButton = new JToggleButton("Toggle Button");

    ItemListener itemListener = new ItemListener() {
      public void itemStateChanged(ItemEvent itemEvent) {
        int state = itemEvent.getStateChange();
        if (state == ItemEvent.SELECTED) {
          System.out.println("Selected");
        } else {
          System.out.println("Deselected");
        }
      }
    };
    // Attach Listeners
    toggleButton.addItemListener(itemListener);
    frame.add(toggleButton, BorderLayout.NORTH);
    frame.setSize(300, 125);
    frame.setVisible(true);
  }
}

Change Listener

The following code shows how to listen to JToggleButton Events with a ChangeListener. It listens to the changes for its armed, pressed, and selected properties.

/*from  w ww .  j  a va 2 s.c  om*/
import java.awt.BorderLayout;

import javax.swing.AbstractButton;
import javax.swing.ButtonModel;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JToggleButton;
import javax.swing.event.ChangeEvent;
import javax.swing.event.ChangeListener;

public class Main {
  public static void main(String args[]) {
    JFrame frame = new JFrame("Selecting Toggle");
    frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
    JToggleButton toggleButton = new JToggleButton("Toggle Button");

    ChangeListener changeListener = new ChangeListener() {
      public void stateChanged(ChangeEvent changeEvent) {
        AbstractButton abstractButton = (AbstractButton) changeEvent.getSource();
        ButtonModel buttonModel = abstractButton.getModel();
        boolean armed = buttonModel.isArmed();
        boolean pressed = buttonModel.isPressed();
        boolean selected = buttonModel.isSelected();
        System.out.println("Changed: " + armed + "/" + pressed + "/" + selected);
      }
    };

    // Attach Listeners
    toggleButton.addChangeListener(changeListener);
    frame.add(toggleButton, BorderLayout.NORTH);
    frame.setSize(300, 125);
    frame.setVisible(true);
  }
}

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