In the future, Swing related questions should be posted in the Swing forum.
> was wondering how to find out which item has been chosen in a combo box?
Read the JComboBox API. One of the "get...." methods will do what you want. Or you could also follow the "How to Use Combo Boxes" link which shows you how to respond to a selection of an item in the combo box..
As camickr said, the api or "how to's..." for the jcombobox will give you what you
need.
http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/uiswing/components/componentlist.html
The Java Tutorial is a great resource for java. You might save yourself a lot of time by consulting it or the api.