wait for a jdialog in non-modal mode

Question

I have a JFrame and when the user presses a button is displayed an input jdialog. I need the jdialog to be in non-modal mode and once the user presses ok, I want to do some action based on the input. Right now I pass my view as reference in the jdialog, so that when the user presses ok, the jdialog calls a method of the view. Is there a more standardized way to handle this or this is the only way? I need the jdialog to be in NON-modal mode

Thanks

Answer 1

You can pass a java.lang.Runnable to be called from the JDialog when the user presses the ok button. In this way you can put the code you want to run inside the Runnable itself.

Answer 2

Your current approach using a callback is straightforward, but the observer pattern is commonly used to decrease the resulting tight coupling. Two implementations are typical in Swing:

1. Arrange for your view to implement the Observer interface and have your input window delegate to a contained instance of Observable. The notifyObservers() method may be used to pass an object reference to the Observer. A very simple example may be found here.

2. Have your input window maintain an EventListenerList using a custom event in which the view registers interest. Data of interest to the listener can be passed in the event itself. It may be convenient to reuse an existing javax.swing.event or model the custom event on such a type. Every JComponent contains an EventListenerList.