Ugh, I that I ask for help after looking for a solution for quite some time, only to find that after 5 minutes after I ask for help, while waiting for an answer, I answer my own question...

I needed to add this snippet

amountOfLodging.setEnabled(false);

ok here is my code

import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.GridLayout;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.text.DecimalFormat;

public class lodgingCharges extends JPanel
{
	JPanel lodgingPanel;
	JRadioButton yes;
	JRadioButton no;
	JLabel lodging;
	static JTextField amountOfLodging;
	
	//constructor
	public lodgingCharges()
	{
		setLayout(new GridLayout(2,2));
		//create radio buttons
		yes=new JRadioButton("Yes");
		no=new JRadioButton("No", true);
		
		//group radio buttons
		ButtonGroup bg = new ButtonGroup();
		bg.add(yes);
		bg.add(no);
		
		//create components
		lodging = new JLabel("Enter Lodging Cost: $");
		amountOfLodging = new JTextField(5);
		
		//create Panel
		lodgingPanel=new JPanel();
		
		//add components to panel
		add(yes);
		add(no);
		add(lodging);
		add(amountOfLodging);
		
		//add listener
		yes.addActionListener(new EnableListener());
		
		//create border around panel
		lodgingPanel.setBorder(BorderFactory.createTitledBorder("Lodging"));	
	}
	
	private class EnableListener implements ActionListener
	{
		public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)
		{
			if(no.isSelected())
				amountOfLodging.setEnabled(false);
			else
				amountOfLodging.setEnabled(true);
		}
	}
	public static String getCharges()
	{
		return amountOfLodging.getText();
	}
}

I'm using this snippet for making my text field "grayed out"

private class EnableListener implements ActionListener
	{
		public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)
		{
			if(no.isSelected())
				amountOfLodging.setEnabled(false);
			else
				amountOfLodging.setEnabled(true);
		}
	}

It isn't working. The text field is still open for user input. What am I doing wrong?

thanks thats the nudge I needed. I knew I needed actionl listeners for this project but I wasn't sure if I was going to put them all in the main method or if I needed some in each class.

karabasf, on 06 February 2012 - 02:39 PM, said:

I literally just came to this conclusion and then I heard my phone ding that I have an email which was a reply to this thread! The only thing is that str1.length()-i will give an error, it needs to be (str1.length()-1)-i

Changing that little piece is making every word I test give the proper results.

Thank you very much for everyone that helped me with this!!

I figured out the 2nd question after a few trial and errors, I wasn't getting any error and I see now that its only testing the first half of the word because if the first have is the same then the 2nd half is the same.

The pseudo code helped me quite a bit and I produced the following code:

	   //test for palindrome
	   boolean palindrome = true;
	   for(int i = 0; i<str1.length()/2; i++)
	   {
		   char a = str1.charAt(i);
		   char b = str1.charAt(str1.length()-1);  
		   if(a!=B)/>
			   palindrome = false;
	   }
	   
	   if (palindrome == false)
		   System.out.println("This word is NOT a palindrome");
	   else
		   System.out.println("This word is a palindrome.");  

This is working when I test the words "mom" and "dog", i get is and isn't a palindrome respectively. Now I tried this with a few larger words, "civic" and "peeweep" and am getting the incorrect output. For both "civic" and "peeweep" it is telling me they are not palindromes.