Saving JTextArea to a .txt file with a button

Question

if I enter text in the JTextArea and click the "Save" button, the JTextArea text should write/save into a .txt file. Is my try & catch in the correct place being in the event handler method or should parts of it be in the constructor?

This is my code:

package exercises;

import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import java.io.FileWriter;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.PrintWriter;

import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JTextArea;

public class SimpleNotePadApp extends JFrame implements ActionListener {

JButton button1 = new JButton("Open");
JButton button2 = new JButton("Save");

public SimpleNotePadApp(String title) {
    super(title);                             
    setDefaultCloseOperation(EXIT_ON_CLOSE);  
    setSize(300, 350);                        
    setLayout(null);


    JTextArea newItemArea = new JTextArea();
    newItemArea.setLocation(3, 3);
    newItemArea.setSize(297, 282);
    getContentPane().add(newItemArea);

    button1.setLocation(30,290);  
    button1.setSize(120, 25);
    getContentPane().add(button1);

    button2.setLocation(150,290);  
    button2.setSize(120, 25);
    getContentPane().add(button2);

}

public static void main(String[] args) {
    SimpleNotePadApp frame;

    frame = new SimpleNotePadApp("Text File GUI");      
    frame.setVisible(true);                             
}

public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {

    if(e.getSource() == button1)
    {
        try {
            PrintWriter out = new PrintWriter(new FileWriter("TestFile.txt"));
            newItemArea.getText();
            newItemArea.write(out);
            out.println(newItemArea);
            out.flush();
            out.close();

        } catch (IOException e1) {
            System.err.println("Error occurred");
            e1.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}
}

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

Your try ... catch is in the correct spot, but the contents should just be:

        PrintWriter out = new PrintWriter(new FileWriter("TestFile.txt"));
        newItemArea.write(out);
        out.close();

Consider using try-with-resources, and the .close() becomes unnecessary:

    try ( PrintWriter out = new PrintWriter(new FileWriter("TestFile.txt")) {
        newItemArea.write(out);
    } catch (IOException e1) {
        System.err.println("Error occurred");
        e1.printStackTrace();
    }

Also, you'll need to attach the ActionListener to the JButton during the construction:

button2.addActionListener(this);

(this is the SimpleNotePadApp instance, which implements ActionListener)

Finally, you'll want:

 if(e.getSource() == button2)

... since button2 is your "Save" button (not button1)