Image not getting displayed on a JPanel.

Question

 class Deal implements ActionListener
    {
        public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)
        {
             dl.setDeck();
             dl.shuffle();
             dl.firstDraw(pl);

             for(Card c:pl.showHand())
             panelplay.add(new JLabel(c.getImageIcon()));

             panelplay.validate();
        }
    }

This is an event handler for a Jbutton. The method pl.showHand() returns a ArrayList of a user defined class 'Card'. Inserting a println() inside the loop shows the print, so the code is being executed but the Panel panelplay isnt showing card Images.

Answer 1

You don't want to add the JLabel in the ActionListener.

You want to use an already added JLabel setText() method in the ActionListener.

You define all the Swing components once, when you create the GUI.

Answer 2

Do as Gilbert says, look at the Swing Tutorial part that concerns Labels.
JLabel has the following methods... void setIcon(Icon)
Icon getIcon()

Also look at the SplitPaneDemo It does exactly what you want, you can even run it with JNLP to see.

Answer 3

What about the existing labels on the panel? You don't remove them. I'm guessing you are using a FlowLayout and the labels just get added to the end of the panel so you don't see them.

So one solution is to use panel.removeAll() before adding the labels back to the panel. I then use:

panel.revalidate();
panel.repaint();

Or the better option as suggested earlier is to not replace the labels but just replace the Icons using the setIcon() method.