Java Programming/Applets/Event Listeners

What are Event Listeners?

An Event Listener, once set to an applet object waits for some action to be performed on it, be it mouse click, mouse hover, pressing of keys, click of button, etc. The class you are using (e.g. JButton, etc.) reports the activity to a class set by the class using it. That method then decides on how to react because of that action, usually with a series of if statements to determine which action it was performed on. source.getSource() will return the name of the object that the event was performed on, while the source is the object passed to the function when the action is performed. Every single time the action is performed, it calls the method