Java action listener

Question

I am making a tic tac toe game on Java using Netbeans. I hava a 3x3 board layout with buttons. When you click on a button, the button is disabled and the letter "X" or "O" appears as the label for the button. When I test my game out to get 3 "X's" in a row. It doesn't say I win until I click on another button. So it doesn't respond that I won until I click another button. Should I use a mouse released event instead?

Answer 1

gameOver should be called last, as until you've updated the button you won't know if a win condition has been reached

You can also greatly reduce the code by using the source of the action

public class Listener implements ActionListener{
    @Override
    public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent ae) {
        Object source = ae.getSource();
        JButton btn = (JButton)source;
        btn.setEnabled(false);
        btn.setFont(new Font("Courier New", Font.BOLD, 56));
        counter++;
        if(counter % 2 == 0 && counter < 10){
            btn.setText("O");
            gameText.setText("X's Turn!");                    
        } else {                       
            btn.setText("X");
            gameText.setText("O's Turn!");
        }           
        gameOver();
    }
}

Your gameOver check is somewhat limited, you could have a look at this example which is used for determining if a win condition in connect 4, but the idea is same.

If you prefer, this example applies the idea to tic tac toe