Is there a way to disable a part of a inherited function through child class in Java?

Question

I'm building a GUI Project in Java. In the parent class, I implemented MouseListener to highlight the button when the cursor hovers over it and stops when the cursor doesn't. I want to disable it in child class so that the button selected is then permanently highlighted showing that it was selected. In child class, when I hover over it, it again changes the color. I want to remove that specific part of the function from child class but I have to write it all over again to override the function. Is there any way I can disable that part in the child class?

Here's the code snippet

public void mouseEntered(MouseEvent e) {
    super.mouseEntered(e);
    if (e.getSource() == notifications) {
        notifications.setBackground(new Color(0x13A89E));
    }
    if (e.getSource() == attendance) {
        attendance.setBackground(new Color(0x13A89E));
    }
    if (e.getSource() == marks) {
        marks.setBackground(new Color(0x13A89E));
    }
    if (e.getSource() == learning) {
        learning.setBackground(new Color(0x13A89E));
    }
    if (e.getSource() == assignments) {
        assignments.setBackground(new Color(0x13A89E));
    }
    if (e.getSource() == GDB) {
        GDB.setBackground(new Color(0x13A89E));
    }
    if (e.getSource() == MDB) {
        MDB.setBackground(new Color(0x13A89E));
    }
    if (e.getSource() == quizzes) {
        quizzes.setBackground(new Color(0x13A89E));
    }
    if (e.getSource() == lectureContents) {
        lectureContents.setBackground(new Color(0x13A89E));
    }
    if (e.getSource() == courseInformation) {
        courseInformation.setBackground(new Color(0x13A89E));
    }
}

public void mouseExited(MouseEvent e) {
    super.mouseExited(e);
    if (e.getSource() == notifications) {
        notifications.setBackground(null);
    }
    if (e.getSource() == attendance) {
        attendance.setBackground(null);
    }
    if (e.getSource() == marks) {
        marks.setBackground(null);
    }
    if (e.getSource() == learning) {
        learning.setBackground(null);
    }
    if (e.getSource() == assignments) {
        assignments.setBackground(null);
    }
    if (e.getSource() == GDB) {
        GDB.setBackground(null);
    }
    if (e.getSource() == MDB) {
        MDB.setBackground(null);
    }
    if (e.getSource() == quizzes) {
        quizzes.setBackground(null);
    }
    if (e.getSource() == lectureContents) {
        lectureContents.setBackground(null);
    }
    if (e.getSource() == courseInformation) {
        courseInformation.setBackground(null);
    }
}

Answer 1

The methods of your parent class are public I see no reason why you cannot simply override them and decide what you want to do:

Parent.java:

public class Parent implements MouseListener {
    @Override  
    public void mouseEntered(MouseEvent e) {
        // all your logic here to highlight when mouse entered/hovered
    }

    @Override
    public void mouseExited(MouseEvent e) {
        // all your logic here for clearing the highlight when the mouse has exited or is not hovering over the component
    }
}

Child.java:

public class Child extends Parent {
    @Override  
    public void mouseEntered(MouseEvent e) {
        // we call super here as we want to inherit logic of the parent class for highlighting on mouse entered/hover
        super.mouseEntered(e);
    }

    @Override
    public void mouseExited(MouseEvent e) {
        // we dont call super here as we don't want to inherit the parents behavior
    }
}