m doing a board game project and ;m representing cells by Jbuttons.

use JToggleButton for game based on buttons array and mouse events, rather than JButton

use ButtonModel instead of any XxxListener

JButton and JToggleButton has implemented these methods in the API directly

.

setIcon(Icon i);
setRolloverIcon(Icon i);
setPressedIcon(Icon i);
setDisabledIcon(Icon i);

setText() с использованием символов Unicode, проиллюстрированныхВот.

yourButton.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
@Override
    public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
        yourButton.setIcon(new ImageIcon("yourImage"));
    }
});

ется чаще всего.