Thread: program a button that copy whatever in a JTextArea

Say there are a JButton called copy, and a JTextArea called txtArea, once the button clicked a copy of whatever in the JTextArea is, moved to the clipboard so that I can paste it to any text editor (e.g. notepad)

Within the listener ; what is the required code

[COLOR="Black"]   private class ButtonWatcher implements ActionListener
   {
 
      public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent a)
      {
         // possible code?
       }
 
   }[/COLOR]

JTextArea inherits a copy() method from JTextComponent, so just invoke this method:

textarea.copy();

Remember that if there is a selection the copy() method only copies that portion.

Originally Posted by copeg

JTextArea inherits a copy() method from JTextComponent, so just invoke this method:

textarea.copy();

Remember that if there is a selection the copy() method only copies that portion.

I used it, no errors, but after clicking the JButton, I expected to be able to right-click on any text editor and normally paste whatever copied from the JTextArea, but that doen't happen

This is the full code for the class:

[COLOR="Black"]
package numbergeneratorchecker;
 
import java.awt.*;
import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.io.*;
 
public class NewClass extends JFrame
{
 
   private JButton click_1;
   private JButton click_2;
   [COLOR="DarkOrange"]private JButton copyy;[/COLOR]
 
   private Panel pn1;
   private Panel pn2;
   private JTextArea txtArea;
   private JScrollPane scrollTxtArea;
 
 
   public NewClass()
   {
      setSize(300, 200);
      setTitle("Number Gererator");
      setDefaultCloseOperation(EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
 
      /********** 2 panels ******************/
      pn1 = new Panel();
      pn2 = new Panel();
 
      /********** 3 button ******************/
      click_1 = new JButton("click_1");
      click_2 = new JButton("click_2");
[COLOR="darkorange"]      copyy = new JButton("copy");[/COLOR]
 
      /********** text area ******************/
      txtArea = new JTextArea(2, 22);
      scrollTxtArea = new JScrollPane(txtArea);
 
 
 
 
 
      /***********  Interface  *******/
      Container cp = getContentPane();
      cp.setLayout(new GridLayout(3,1));
 
      /***** 2 panels ****/
      cp.add(pn1);
      cp.add(pn2);
 
 
      click_1.addActionListener(new ButtonWatcher());
      click_2.addActionListener(new ButtonWatcher());
      [COLOR="DarkOrange"]copyy.addActionListener(new ButtonWatcher());[/COLOR]
 
      /********** button ******************/
      pn1.add(click_1);
      pn1.add(click_2);
 [COLOR="DarkOrange"]     pn1.add(copyy);[/COLOR]
 
      /******* text area ******/
      pn2.add(scrollTxtArea);
 
   }
   private class ButtonWatcher implements ActionListener
   {
      public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent a)
      {
 
         Object buttonPressed = a.getSource();
         if (buttonPressed.equals(click_1))
         {
            txtArea.setText(" Click_1 is pressed ");
         }
         if (buttonPressed.equals(click_2))
         {
            txtArea.setText(" click_2 is pressed ");
         }
[COLOR="darkorange"]         if (buttonPressed.equals(copyy))
         {
            txtArea.copy();
         }[/COLOR]
      }
   }
}[/COLOR]

Remember that if there is a selection the copy() method only copies that portion.

Do you mean that this method only works when there is a selected text, and doesn't work otherwise? Ok I have tried both ways (with selected and unselected text) but no result

If it is the case, then is there a way to copy whatever in JTextArea with just clicking a button without a selection… if it is complex to do that, just correct my use to copy() method .

Read the API for the JTextComponent (Java 2 Platform SE 5.0)
It only works for the selected text. A workaround is to save the selection, select all, call copy, then reset the original selection. I haven't implemented something like that in a while but it should work. The alternative is to make calls directly to the Clipboard. You can find many solutions to this by googling "java Clipboard copy paste"

If you go the clipboard way, you might want to take a look at the API for java.awt.datatransfer.StringSelection

db