How to cut/copy/paste text to JTextField when some JComponent is clicked?

Question

I'm creating custom popup menu, using just extended JComponent as a menu items and extended JWindow to hold them. My question is - how to send signal from JComponent instance when it's clicked (has MouseListener) to JTextField to perform cut/copy/paste actions?

EDIT:

I will try to explain more precisely.

JTextField class (simplified):

public class TextInputField extends JTextField implements FocusListener {

        private MenuPopupWindow popUp;

        public TextInputField() {


           popUp = new MenuPopupWindow();//MenuPopupWindow class extends JWindow

           MenuItem paste = new MenuItem("Paste", 
                                         new ImageIcon(getClass().getResource("/images/paste_icon.png")),
                                         "Ctrl+V");//MenuItem class extends JComponent, has implemented MouseListener - and when mouseClicked(MouseEvent e) occurs, somehow action signal have to be sent to this class
            MenuItem copy = ....
            MenuItem cut = ....


            Action pasteAction = getActionMap().get(DefaultEditorKit.pasteAction);
            paste.setAction(pasteAction);//How to make it to work?


            popUp.addMenuItem(paste);
            popUp.addMenuItem(cut);
            popUp.addMenuItem(copy);

        }
        }

How to do it right?

Answer 1

In light of your posted code, I think all you need to do in your TextInputField class, is add:

paste.addActionListener(pasteAction);

then in your MenuItem class you have to put in code to call those action listeners.

public class MenuItem implements MouseListener
{
    ...
    @Override public void mouseClicked(MouseEvent event)
    {
        ActionListener[] listeners = (ActionListener[])
            MenuItem.this.getListeners(ActionListener.class);
        for(int i = 0; i < listeners.length; i++)
        {
            listeners[i].actionPerformed
            (
                new ActionEvent(MenuItem.this,someID, someCMDName)
            );
        }
    }

In your class that extends JComponent (I'll call it class 'A') you will need to get a reference to your JTextField. A simple way to do this is to add a private instance variable of type JTextField to class A, and pass in the JTextField through the constructor.

so your class should look something like this:

public class A extends JComponent implements ActionListener
{
    private JTextField updateField;

    public A(JTextField updateField[,<your other contructor arguments>...])
    {
        this.updateField = updateField;
        this.addActionListener(this);
    }

    public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent event)
    {
        if(event.getSource().equals(this)
        {
            //copy, paste or do whatever with the JTextField
            //by way of this.updateField;
            //e.g. this.updateField.setText(...);
            //or to simply pass the event along to the JTextField's handlers
            //this.updateField.dispatchEvent(event);
        }
    }
}

then you just have to remember to pass the jtextField into the constructor when you create your component