JOptionPane using one window for input and output

Question

So I'm working on a little project and I'm looking for the base code for how to do this in JOptionPane. I'm still really new to this side of Java. I'm not looking for a whole lot, I just didn't know where to start.

The program should populate the screen with a JOptionPane window. I need it to be modeled like the picture below. The bottom row is a text input from the user and when they hit the enter key, the text should "refresh/clear" and then the middle string area should populate with both the user input and then just below it the result of an if statement according the the code.

for example: The user enters in: "Hello". Then the text input should refresh and the grey box should do this: "User: Hello." "Computer: Hello user".

I would really appreciate any and all help on this.

Answer 1

You don't System.out.println() into a gui component. Doesn't work like this. You can write a console program and use JOptionPanes to get user input, but the output would be used in the console program. You would need to create a gui program mimic a console.

Here's a basic layout to start you off

public class Game extends JFrame {
    JTextArea jta = new JTextArea(10, 30);
    JTextField jtf = new JTextField(30);

    public Game(){
        add(jtf, BorderLayout.SOUTH);
        add(jta, BorderLayour.CENTER);

        jta.addActionListener(new ActionListener(){
            public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e){

            }
        });
    }

    public static void main(String[] args){
        SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable(){
            public void run(){
                JFrame frame = new Game();
                frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
                frame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
                frame.pack();
                frame.setVisible(true);
            }
        });
    }
}

What I would suggest is since this is a very basic program, I would use an array of String commands and iterate through them.

For example:

String[] question = {"Do you want to go to school?",
                     "Do you want to drive or walk?"};

jta.setText(questions[0]);

Then in your actionPerformed get the answer from the text field. Use an if statement like

if (jtf.getText().equals("yes") {
    jta.append(questions[1]);
}

And so on. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, I would really consider using the Swing tutorials I mentioned. There's a lot of info in those tutorials.