Adding elements to a JList

Question

I have an array of objects that contain the name of customers, like this: Customers[]

How I can add those elements to an existing JList automatically after I press a button? I have tried something like this:

for (int i=0;i<Customers.length;i++)
{
    jList1.add(Customers[i].getName());
}

But I always get a mistake. How I can solve that? I am working on NetBeans. The error that appears is "not suitable method found for add(String). By the way my method getName is returning the name of the customer in a String.

Answer 1

The add method you are using is the Container#add method, so certainly not what you need. You need to alter the ListModel, e.g.

DefaultListModel<String> model = new DefaultListModel<>();
JList<String> list = new JList<>( model );

for ( int i = 0; i < customers.length; i++ ){
  model.addElement( customers[i].getName() );
}

Edit:

I adjusted the code snippet to add the names directly to the model. This avoids the need for a custom renderer

Answer 2

Add to the ListModel rather than directly to the JList itself. Currently you are using the add method which does not affect the contents of the list. DefaultListModel is mutable so can be updated at runtime.

Declaring:

JList<String> jList1 = new JList<String>(new DefaultListModel<String>());

Adding:

((DefaultListModel)jList1.getModel()).addElement(Customers[i].getName());