CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javaswing
Raji
Raji

Reputation:

scrollbars in JTextArea

How do I add scrollbars to a JTextArea?

Upvotes: 57

Views: 153335

Answers (7)

Ernie Sender
Ernie Sender

Reputation: 414

simple add(new JScrollPane(textArea), BorderLayout.CENTER);

Upvotes: 0

Sachindra N. Pandey
Sachindra N. Pandey

Reputation: 1252

Simple Way to add JTextArea in JScrollBar with JScrollPan

import javax.swing.*;
public class ScrollingTextArea 
{
     JFrame f;
     JTextArea ta;
     JScrollPane scrolltxt;

     public ScrollingTextArea() 
     {
        // TODO Auto-generated constructor stub

        f=new JFrame();
        f.setLayout(null);
        f.setVisible(true);
        f.setSize(500,500);
        ta=new JTextArea();
        ta.setBounds(5,5,100,200);

        scrolltxt=new JScrollPane(ta);
        scrolltxt.setBounds(3,3,400,400);

         f.add(scrolltxt);

     }

     public static void main(String[] args) 
     {
        new ScrollingTextArea();
     }
}

Upvotes: 5

user2538501
user2538501

Reputation: 31

I just wanted to say thank you to the topmost first post by a user whom I think is named "coobird". I am new to this stackoverflow.com web site, but I cant believe how useful and helpful this community is...so thanks to all of you for posting some great tips and advise to others. Thats what a community is all about.

Now coobird correctly said:

As Fredrik mentions in his answer, the simple way to achieve this is to place the JTextArea in a JScrollPane. This will allow scrolling of the view area of the JTextArea.

I would like to say:

The above statement is absolutely true. In fact, I had been struggling with this in Eclipse using the WindowBuilder Pro plugin because I could not figure out what combination of widgets would help me achieve that. However, thanks to the post by coobird, I was able to resolve this frustration which took me days.

I would also like to add that I am relatively new to Java even though I have a solid foundation in the principles. The code snippets and advise you guys give here are tremendously useful.

I just want to add one other tid-bit that may help others. I noticed that Coobird put some code as follows (in order to show how to create a Scrollable text area). He wrote:

JTextArea ta = new JTextArea();
JScrollPane sp = new JScrollPane(ta);

I would like to say thanks to the above code snippet from coobird. I have not tried it directly like that but I am sure it would work just fine. However, it may be useful to some to let you know that when I did this using the WindowBuilder Pro tool, I got something more like the following (which I think is just a slightly longer more "indirect" way for WindowBuilder to achieve what you see in the two lines above. My code kinda reads like this:

JScrollPane scrollPane = new JScrollPane();
scrollPane.setBounds(23, 40, 394, 191);
frame.getContentPane().add(scrollPane);

JTextArea textArea_1 = new JTextArea();
scrollPane.setViewportView(textArea_1);`

Notice that WindowBuilder basically creates a JScrollPane called scrollpane (in the first three lines of code)...then it sets the viewportview by the following line: scrollPane.setViewportView(textArea_1). So in essence, this line is adding the textArea_1 in my code (which is obviously a JTextArea) to be added to my JScrollPane **which is precisely what coobird was talking about).

Hope this is helpful because I did not want the WindowBuilder Pro developers to get confused thinking that Coobird's advise was not correct or something.

Best Wishes to all and happy coding :)

Upvotes: 3

Bhushankumar Lilapara
Bhushankumar Lilapara

Reputation: 780

            txtarea = new JTextArea(); 
    txtarea.setRows(25);
    txtarea.setColumns(25);
    txtarea.setWrapStyleWord(true);
    JScrollPane scroll = new JScrollPane (txtarea);
    panel2.add(scroll); //Object of Jpanel

Above given lines automatically shows you both horizontal & vertical Scrollbars..

Upvotes: 7

Norm MacLennan
Norm MacLennan

Reputation: 451

You first have to define a JTextArea as per usual:

public final JTextArea mainConsole = new JTextArea("");

Then you put a JScrollPane over the TextArea

JScrollPane scrollPane = new JScrollPane(mainConsole);
scrollPane.setBounds(10,60,780,500);
scrollPane.setVerticalScrollBarPolicy(ScrollPaneConstants.VERTICAL_SCROLLBAR_ALWAYS);

The last line says that the vertical scrollbar will always be there. There is a similar command for horizontal. Otherwise, the scrollbar will only show up when it is needed (or never, if you use _SCROLLBAR_NEVER). I guess it's your call which way you want to use it.

You can also add wordwrap to the JTextArea if you want to:Guide Here

Good luck,
Norm M

P.S. Make sure you add the ScrollPane to the JPanel and not add the JTextArea.

Upvotes: 18

coobird
coobird

Reputation: 161022

As Fredrik mentions in his answer, the simple way to achieve this is to place the JTextArea in a JScrollPane. This will allow scrolling of the view area of the JTextArea.

Just for the sake of completeness, the following is how it could be achieved:

JTextArea ta = new JTextArea();
JScrollPane sp = new JScrollPane(ta);   // JTextArea is placed in a JScrollPane.

Once the JTextArea is included in the JScrollPane, the JScrollPane should be added to where the text area should be. In the following example, the text area with the scroll bars is added to a JFrame:

JFrame f = new JFrame();
f.getContentPane().add(sp);

Thank you kd304 for mentioning in the comments that one should add the JScrollPane to the container rather than the JTextArea -- I feel it's a common error to add the text area itself to the destination container rather than the scroll pane with text area.

The following articles from The Java Tutorials has more details:

Upvotes: 80

Fredrik
Fredrik

Reputation: 5849

Put it in a JScrollPane

Edit: Here is a link for you: http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/uiswing/components/textarea.html

Upvotes: 18

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