Jython classes and variable scope

Question

What I want to know is, how can I create GUI elements using swing inside a Jython class so that they can be referenced from outside the class, and I can use statements like button.setText("Hello") on an object that was created inside another class. For example:

foo.py:

 from javax.swing import *
 class Test():

    def __init__(self):
        frame = JFrame("TEST")
        button = JButton("Hey")
        frame.add(button)
        frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE)
        frame.setSize(300,200)
        frame.show()

and then I have another file called somethingelse.py:

from foo import *
run = Test()

If I were to want to change the button text by using run.button.setText("Message"), how could I organise the Test() class such that I could change the text from the second file, somethingelse.py.

Answer 1

Your code is throwing away the references it has to the controls, so you can't access them from anywhere - frame and button are local variables, and disappear once __init__ returns.

You should (minimally) make them object members:

class Test():

    def __init__(self):
        self.frame = JFrame("TEST")
        self.button = JButton("Hey")
        self.frame.add(button)
        # ...

You can then say:

from foo import *
run = Test()
run.button.setText("Message")