CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javauser-interfaceswing
Robert Petermeier
Robert Petermeier

Reputation: 4152

How to select all text in a JFormattedTextField when it gets focus?

I have a small Java desktop app that uses Swing. There is a data entry dialog with some input fields of different types (JTextField, JComboBox, JSpinner, JFormattedTextField). When I activate the JFormattedTextFields either by tabbing through the form or by clicking it with the mouse, I would like it to select all the text that it currently contains. That way, users could just start typing and overwrite the default values.

How can I do that? I did use a FocusListener/FocusAdapter that calls selectAll() on the JFormattedTextField, but it doesn't select anything, although the FocusAdapter's focusGained() method is called (see code sample below).

private javax.swing.JFormattedTextField pricePerLiter;
// ...
pricePerLiter.setFormatterFactory(
    new JFormattedTextField.AbstractFormatterFactory() {
    private NumberFormatter formatter = null;
    public JFormattedTextField.AbstractFormatter 
        getFormatter(JFormattedTextField jft) {
        if (formatter == null) {
            formatter = new NumberFormatter(new DecimalFormat("#0.000"));
            formatter.setValueClass(Double.class);
        }
        return formatter;
    }
});
// ...
pricePerLiter.addFocusListener(new java.awt.event.FocusAdapter() {
    public void focusGained(java.awt.event.FocusEvent evt) {
        pricePerLiter.selectAll();
    }
});

Any ideas? The funny thing is that selecting all of its text apparently is the default behavior for both JTextField and JSpinner, at least when tabbing through the form.

Upvotes: 37

Views: 38788

Answers (5)

Adrien Clerc
Adrien Clerc

Reputation: 2797

I know this is kind of old, but I came up with a cleaner solution, without invokeLater:

private class SelectAllOfFocus extends FocusAdapter {

    @Override
    public void focusGained(FocusEvent e) {
        if (! e.isTemporary()) {
            JFormattedTextField textField = (JFormattedTextField)e.getComponent();
            // This is needed to put the text field in edited mode, so that its processFocusEvent doesn't
            // do anything. Otherwise, it calls setValue, and the selection is lost.
            textField.setText(textField.getText());
            textField.selectAll();
        }
    }

}

Upvotes: 7

Eugene Ryzhikov
Eugene Ryzhikov

Reputation: 17369

Wrap your call with SwingUtilities.invokeLater so it will happen after all pending AWT events have been processed :

pricePerLiter.addFocusListener(new java.awt.event.FocusAdapter() {
    public void focusGained(java.awt.event.FocusEvent evt) {
        SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                pricePerLiter.selectAll();
            }
        });
    }
});

Upvotes: 71

user231765
user231765

Reputation: 21

The code of camickr can be slightly improved. When the focus passes from a JTextField to another kind of component (such a button), the last automatic selection does not get cleared. It can be fixed this way:

    KeyboardFocusManager.getCurrentKeyboardFocusManager()
        .addPropertyChangeListener("permanentFocusOwner", new PropertyChangeListener()
    {
        @Override
        public void propertyChange(final PropertyChangeEvent e)
        {

            if (e.getOldValue() instanceof JTextField)
            {
                    SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable()
                    {
                            @Override
                            public void run()
                            {
                                    JTextField oldTextField = (JTextField)e.getOldValue();
                                    oldTextField.setSelectionStart(0);
                                    oldTextField.setSelectionEnd(0);
                            }
                    });

            }

            if (e.getNewValue() instanceof JTextField)
            {
                    SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable()
                    {
                            @Override
                            public void run()
                            {
                                    JTextField textField = (JTextField)e.getNewValue();
                                    textField.selectAll();
                            }
                    });

            }
        }
    });

Upvotes: 2

camickr
camickr

Reputation: 324128

In addition to the above, if you want this for all text fields you can just do:

KeyboardFocusManager.getCurrentKeyboardFocusManager()
    .addPropertyChangeListener("permanentFocusOwner", new PropertyChangeListener()
{
    public void propertyChange(final PropertyChangeEvent e)
    {
        if (e.getNewValue() instanceof JTextField)
        {
            SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable()
            {
                public void run()
                {
                    JTextField textField = (JTextField)e.getNewValue();
                    textField.selectAll();
                }
            });

        }
    }
});

Upvotes: 15

pavan
pavan

Reputation: 217

Thats because the JFormattedTextfield overrides processFocusEvent to format on focus gained/focus lost.

One sure shot way is to extend JFormattedTextField and override the processFocusEvent method :

new JFormattedTextField("...") {  
        protected void processFocusEvent(FocusEvent e) {  
            super.processFocusEvent(e);  
            if (e.isTemporary())  
                return;  
            SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {  
                @Override  
                public void run() {  
                    selectAll();  
                }   
            });  
        }  
    };

Using a focusListener might not always work..since it would depend on the time at which it is called relative to the processFocusEvent.

Upvotes: 7

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