Closing another JFrame from another method - swing

Question

I've been working on this for some time, and I'd really appreciate some help right now.
I'm trying to get the JFrame containing the text input fields to close from my actionPerformed method, but I can't seem to get anything to work. JFrame.dispose wont let me access the right Jframe, and setVisible(false) is equally useless, unless I'm doing this completely wrong.
//halp
import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import java.awt.event.KeyEvent;
class PersonInput extends JPanel
implements ActionListener {
//Fields for data entry
private JFormattedTextField firstField, lastField, dateField;
public String x[] = new String[3];
public PersonInput() {
//Values for the fields
String first = "First Name";
String last = "Last Name";
String date = "MM/DD/YYYY";
//Create the text fields and set them up.
firstField = new JFormattedTextField();
firstField.setValue(new String(first));
lastField = new JFormattedTextField();
lastField.setValue(new String(last));
dateField = new JFormattedTextField();
dateField.setValue(new String(date));
dateField.setColumns(10);
JButton ok = new JButton("OK");
ok.setVerticalTextPosition(AbstractButton.BOTTOM);
ok.setHorizontalTextPosition(AbstractButton.CENTER);
ok.setActionCommand("ok");
ok.addActionListener(this);
ok.setToolTipText("Confirms user input and continues with the program.");
JPanel buttons = new JPanel(new GridLayout(0,1));
buttons.add(ok);
//Layout the text fields in a panel.
JPanel fieldPane = new JPanel(new GridLayout(0,1));
fieldPane.add(firstField);
fieldPane.add(lastField);
fieldPane.add(dateField);
//Put the panels in this panel, labels on left,
//text fields on right.
setBorder(BorderFactory.createEmptyBorder(20, 20, 20, 20));
add(fieldPane, BorderLayout.CENTER);
add(buttons, BorderLayout.LINE_END);
}
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
if ("ok".equals(e.getActionCommand()))
{
JFrame frame1 = new JFrame("People Sorter");
x[0] = firstField.getText();
x[1] = lastField.getText();
x[2] = dateField.getText();
JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(frame1, "Person has been added.");
dispPerson();
frame.setVisible(false);
}
}
public void dispPerson()
{
System.out.println(x[0] + x[1] + x[2]);
}
public static void createAndShowGUI() {
//Create and set up the window.
JFrame frame = new JFrame("Person Input");
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
//Add contents to the window.
frame.add(new PersonInput());
//Display the window.
frame.pack();
frame.setVisible(true);
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
//Turn off metal's use of bold fonts
UIManager.put("swing.boldMetal", Boolean.FALSE);
createAndShowGUI();
}
});
}
}
I'm all ears if anyone has any ideas; I've been stressed over this all day. Thanks much for lending me your time!
EDIT: Just for clarification, the frame I'm trying to close is the one instantiated in the createAndShowGUI method.

Answer 1

it seems that the problem is that we are trying to merge both static and non static contents. For a short explanation static contents can be referred without need of creating an instance (object) of that class. Which means that createAndShowGUI can be called:
inside another static method (like main)
From class reference PersonInput.createAndShowGUI()
or from an object, but that method or attribute will be always the same, static attributes are shared.
I can suggest 2 ways to solve your problem.
One is pass the object frame to PersonInput
//halp
import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import java.awt.event.KeyEvent;
class PersonInput extends JPanel
implements ActionListener {
//Fields for data entry
private JFormattedTextField firstField, lastField, dateField;
public String x[] = new String[3];
JFrame frame;
public PersonInput(JFrame frame) {
this.frame = frame;
//the rest of your code
}
The other way is to have the frame object outside the method and declare it static.
static JFrame frame = new JFrame("Person Input");;
public static void createAndShowGUI() {
//Create and set up the window.
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
//Add contents to the window.
frame.add(new PersonInput());
//Display the window.
frame.pack();
frame.setVisible(true);
}
Remember that static variable cannot be referenced from a static context