Name: krC82822 Date: 12/11/2000


orig synopsis: "Add proper Action support to AbstractButton inherited classes"

java version "1.3.0"
Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.3.0-C)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.3.0-C, mixed mode)

The introduction of javax.swing.Action and AbstractButton.get/setAction() is
great for people writing GUIs using IDEs, but PLEASE add proper support for
Actions to AbstractButton subclasses such as JButton, JMenuItem,
JCheckBoxMenuItem, JToggleButton, JRadioButton, JCheckBox etc.

Some bug examples:

JButton: overwrites AbstractButton.configurePropertiesFromAction() to check for
the "hideActionText" clientProperty BUT FORGETS to overwrite
AbstractButton.createActionPropertyChangeListener() so when you modify an Action
AFTER you've done JButton.setAction(), the hideActionText() is ignored and the text
is set anyway!!!!

JMenuItem: overwrites AbstractButton.configurePropertiesFromAction() but FORGETS
to get & set the ACCELERATOR_KEY property from the Action. (accelerators are
pretty common (understatement) for a JMenuItem!) Same as with JButton: doesn't
overwrite AbstractButton.createActionPropertyChangeListener(), so changes to an
Action after the setAction() method aren't dealt with properly!

JCheckBoxMenuItem/JCheckBox/JRadioButtonMenuitem/JRadioButton/JToggleButton:
I agree that defining a STATE/SELECTED key in javax.swing.Action is excessive,
since only the CheckBox/Radio components use that, but AT LEAST add/check for a
custom Action property "state"/"selected" to/in AbstractAction (using
get/putValue()). This way a programmer can check the "state"/"selected" property
(of Boolean type) when actionPerformed() is called!

All these bugs together make it VERY difficult to effectively use Actions to
design a GUI at the moment, so PLEASE fix this ASAP (preferably the next 1.3
release (1.3.1))!!!

Also, please add get/set methods for the Action keys in AbstractAction so we
can use AbstractAction in an IDE's designer (bug 4371936).

(Review ID: 111027)
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