Gaining control over objects not referenced by variables

[daiyen]

I've learned that a simple way of creating MenuItems is to create a method for it in which you add listeners to them and set their properties. Even back then, I couldn't find out a way to later on set any property of them. Now I'm trying to create TextFields just the same way, and I've almost found a way to set things after I've created them, but still, I fail.

Here are the methods I'd created so far

    private TextField createTextField(String text, String name, int cols)
    {
        TextField nextTextField = new TextField(text, cols);
        nextTextField.setName(name); //for me to have something simple to refer to this object later on
 
        return nextTextField;            
    }

for creating the textfields, and for getting to them:

    private Component getByName(String componentName, Container cont)        
    {
        for(Component c : cont.getComponents())
        {
            System.out.println(c.getName()); //to be able to see where the search is going
            if(c.getName() == componentName)
            {
                return this.getComponentAt(c.getLocation());
            }
        } 
        return null;
    }

getByName("Nickname", leftPanel).setForeground(Color.orange);

does nothing. In fact setBackground does nothing as well.. setEnabled(false) gets to somehow freeze the whole application. It's like by calling getByName method I'd get the whole JFrame or something - which is not the case.

The question is, what do i do wrong?
Any clue would be much appreciated!

Thank you:)

[jkmyoung]

This could be a number of things. Starting with the most basic:

Have you added the TextField to the container object?

Are you actually getting the objects from the method? eg do you have a debug stmt, like
if( getByName("Nickname", leftPanel) == null) System.out.println("Nickname is null!");

Why do you use return this.getComponentAt(c.getLocation());
and not return c? Is it possible that there are multiple components at this location?

Is the TextField obscured by any other object?

[daiyen]

I've always returned at least some component according to that println just before the return statement:)

You're totally right about the needlessness of the getComponentAt, instead I'll return c immediately.

And yes, I've added the TextField to the container:)

Is this even the right way to do such thing or could you suggest a better way?:)

Edit: returning c by itself has helped the case, I can now setEnable the right component:)

I'm wondering however, if I could get the content of the specific component that I've just returned.. :)