Dynamically Changing the Display Names of Menus and Popups

Very interesting thing and handy to know when needed is the fact that "menuText" and "popupText" (from org.openide.awt.ActionRegistration) can be changed dynamically, via "putValue" as shown below for "popupText". The Action class, in this case, needs to be eager, hence you won't receive the object of interest via the constructor, but you can easily use the global Lookup for that purpose instead, as also shown below.

import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.text.DateFormat;
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.util.Collection;
import javax.swing.AbstractAction;
import org.netbeans.api.project.Project;
import org.netbeans.api.project.ProjectUtils;
import org.openide.awt.ActionID;
import org.openide.awt.ActionReference;
import org.openide.awt.ActionRegistration;
import org.openide.awt.StatusDisplayer;
import org.openide.util.Lookup;
import org.openide.util.LookupEvent;
import org.openide.util.LookupListener;
import org.openide.util.Utilities;
import org.openide.util.WeakListeners;

@ActionID(
        category = "Demo",
        id = "org.ptt.TrackProjectSelectionAction")
@ActionRegistration(
        lazy = false,
        displayName = "NOT-USED")
@ActionReference(
        path = "Projects/Actions",
        position = 0)
public final class TrackProjectSelectionAction extends AbstractAction 
    implements LookupListener {

    private Lookup.Result<Project> projects;
    private Project context;

    public TrackProjectSelectionAction() {
        projects = Utilities.actionsGlobalContext().lookupResult(Project.class);
        projects.addLookupListener(
                WeakListeners.create(LookupListener.class, this, projects));
        resultChanged(new LookupEvent(projects));
    }

    @Override
    public void resultChanged(LookupEvent le) {
        Collection<? extends Project> p = projects.allInstances();
        if (p.size() == 1) {
            Project currentProject = p.iterator().next();
            String currentProjectName = 
                    ProjectUtils.getInformation(currentProject).getDisplayName();
            putValue("popupText", "Current Project: " + currentProjectName);
            StatusDisplayer.getDefault().setStatusText("Current Project: " + currentProjectName);
            context = currentProject;
        }
    }

    @Override
    public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
        refresh();
    }

    protected void refresh() {
        DateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("HH:mm:ss");
        String formatted = formatter.format(System.currentTimeMillis());
        putValue("popupText", "Last Click At: " + formatted + " (" + ProjectUtils.getInformation(context) + ")");
    }
}

Now, let's do something semi useful and display, in the popup, which is available when you right-click a project, the time since the last change was made anywhere in the project, i.e., we can listen recursively to any changes done within a project and then update the popup with the newly acquired information, dynamically:

import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.text.DateFormat;
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Collection;
import java.util.List;
import javax.swing.AbstractAction;
import org.netbeans.api.project.Project;
import org.netbeans.api.project.ProjectUtils;
import org.openide.awt.ActionID;
import org.openide.awt.ActionReference;
import org.openide.awt.ActionRegistration;
import org.openide.awt.StatusDisplayer;
import org.openide.filesystems.FileAttributeEvent;
import org.openide.filesystems.FileChangeListener;
import org.openide.filesystems.FileEvent;
import org.openide.filesystems.FileRenameEvent;
import org.openide.util.Lookup;
import org.openide.util.LookupEvent;
import org.openide.util.LookupListener;
import org.openide.util.Utilities;
import org.openide.util.WeakListeners;

@ActionID(
        category = "Demo",
        id = "org.ptt.TrackProjectSelectionAction")
@ActionRegistration(
        lazy = false,
        displayName = "NOT-USED")
@ActionReference(
        path = "Projects/Actions",
        position = 0)
public final class TrackProjectSelectionAction extends AbstractAction
        implements LookupListener, FileChangeListener {

    private Lookup.Result<Project> projects;
    private Project context;
    private Long startTime;
    private Long changedTime;
    private DateFormat formatter;
    private List<Project> timedProjects;

    public TrackProjectSelectionAction() {
        putValue("popupText", "Timer");
        formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("HH:mm:ss");
        timedProjects = new ArrayList<Project>();
        projects = Utilities.actionsGlobalContext().lookupResult(Project.class);
        projects.addLookupListener(
                WeakListeners.create(LookupListener.class, this, projects));
        resultChanged(new LookupEvent(projects));
    }

    @Override
    public void resultChanged(LookupEvent le) {
        Collection<? extends Project> allProjects = projects.allInstances();
        if (allProjects.size() == 1) {
            Project currentProject = allProjects.iterator().next();
            if (!timedProjects.contains(currentProject)) {
                String currentProjectName =
                        ProjectUtils.getInformation(currentProject).getDisplayName();
                putValue("popupText", "Start Timer for Project: " + currentProjectName);
                StatusDisplayer.getDefault().setStatusText("Current Project: " + currentProjectName);
                timedProjects.add(currentProject);
                context = currentProject;
            } 
        }
    }

    @Override
    public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
        refresh();
    }

    protected void refresh() {
        startTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
        String formattedStartTime = formatter.format(startTime);
        putValue("popupText", "Timer started: " + formattedStartTime + " ("
                + ProjectUtils.getInformation(context).getDisplayName() + ")");
    }

    @Override
    public void fileChanged(FileEvent fe) {
        changedTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
        formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("mm:ss");
        String formattedLapse = formatter.format(changedTime - startTime);
        putValue("popupText", "Time since last change: " + formattedLapse + " ("
                + ProjectUtils.getInformation(context).getDisplayName() + ")");
        startTime = changedTime;
    }

    @Override
    public void fileFolderCreated(FileEvent fe) {}
    @Override
    public void fileDataCreated(FileEvent fe) {}
    @Override
    public void fileDeleted(FileEvent fe) {}
    @Override
    public void fileRenamed(FileRenameEvent fre) {}
    @Override
    public void fileAttributeChanged(FileAttributeEvent fae) {}
    
}

Some more work needs to be done to complete the above, i.e., for each project you somehow need to maintain the start time and last change and redisplay that whenever the user right-clicks the project.