java - Swing - Dispose a frame

My aim is for an action listener to close a specific JFrame when the
user hits the JButton to quit.

Overall, when
the program starts a large JFrame opens then a small one in front....in my code the user
enters some details in this small one and hits submit(for the sake of simplicity, ive
omitted this code here and replaced submit with
quit)

So when this quit buttons
pressed. I expect this small JFrame to close. I can't seem to figure this out. The
action listeners in a different class and ive tried making instances and had no luck.
I've commented out the code I've tried below when attempting to solve this
issue.

import
            javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.*;
import
            java.awt.event.*;

public class test
{
 public
            static void main(String Args[])

 {
 makeGUI m = new
            makeGUI();
 }
}

class
            makeGUI
{
 JButton close = new JButton("CLOSE
            ME");

 makeGUI()

 {
 frame f1 = new
            frame();

 JFrame smallframe = new JFrame(); //want to close this
            one
 JPanel jp = new JPanel(new FlowLayout());

            smallframe.setSize(300,300);

            smallframe.setLocationRelativeTo(null);

            smallframe.setDefaultCloseOperation(smallframe.DISPOSE_ON_CLOSE);

            close.addActionListener(new action());
 jp.add(close);


            smallframe.add(jp);
 smallframe.setVisible(true);

            }

 class action implements ActionListener
 {

            public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)
 {
 //makeGUI s1 = new
            makeGUI();
 if (e.getSource () == close)

 {

            //s1.smallframe.dispose();
 System.out.println("gotcha");

            }
 }
 } 
}

class frame extends
            JFrame
{

 frame ()
 {

            setExtendedState(JFrame.MAXIMIZED_BOTH);

            setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
 setTitle("big
            one");
 setVisible(true);

            }
}

class="post-text" itemprop="text">

class="normal">Answer

First, it's not a good practice to
name classes with a lowercase, so try renaming to something like
MakeGUI instead of
makeGUI.

The problem
with your commented code is that it creates a new instance of
makeGUI every time the button is clicked
and the action listener is invoked. The result is that when you click on the close
button, a new frame is created, then an inner one and this inner one gets immediately
closed. The only thing you'd be doing is creating more and more frames. You should keep
the instance as a state, for instance as a class
member:

class MakeGUI {

            JFrame smallframe;
 JButton close = new JButton("CLOSE
            ME");


 MakeGUI() {

 frame f1 = new
            frame();
 smallframe = new JFrame(); //want to close this one

            JPanel jp = new JPanel(new FlowLayout());
 smallframe.setSize(300,
            300);
 smallframe.setLocationRelativeTo(null);

            smallframe.setDefaultCloseOperation(smallframe.DISPOSE_ON_CLOSE);

            close.addActionListener(new action());
 jp.add(close);

            smallframe.add(jp);
 smallframe.setVisible(true);


            }

 class action implements ActionListener {
 public void
            actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
 if (e.getSource() == close) {
 //
            use this instead of dispose
 smallframe.dispatchEvent(new
            WindowEvent(smallframe, WindowEvent.WINDOW_CLOSING));

            System.out.println("gotcha");
 }
 }


            }
}