A JList
presents the user with a group of items, displayed in one or more columns, to choose from. Lists can have many items, so they are often put in scroll panes.
In addition to lists, the following Swing components present multiple selectable items to the user: combo boxes, menus, tables, and groups of check boxes or radio buttons. To display hierarchical data, use a tree.
The following figures shows two applications that use lists. This section uses these examples as a basis for the discussions that follow.
This rest of this section discusses the following topics:
There are three ways to create a list model:
DefaultListModel
.AbstractListModel
and implement the getSize
and getElementAt
methods inherited from the ListModel
interface.Here is the code from ListDialog.java
that creates and sets up its list:
list = new JList(data); //data has type Object[] list.setSelectionMode(ListSelectionModel.SINGLE_INTERVAL_SELECTION); list.setLayoutOrientation(JList.HORIZONTAL_WRAP); list.setVisibleRowCount(-1); ... JScrollPane listScroller = new JScrollPane(list); listScroller.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(250, 80));
The code passes an array to the list's constructor. The array is filled with strings that were passed in from another object. In our example, the strings happen to be boys' names.
Other JList
constructors let you initialize a list from a Vector
or from an object that adheres to the ListModel
interface. If you initialize a list with an array or vector, the constructor implicitly creates a default list model. The default list model is immutable — you cannot add, remove, or replace items in the list. To create a list whose items can be changed individually, set the list's model to an instance of a mutable list model class, such as an instance of DefaultListModel
. You can set a list's model when you create the list or by calling the setModel
method. See Adding Items to and Removing Items from a List for an example.
The call to setSelectionMode
specifies how many items the user can select, and whether they must be contiguous; the next section tells you more about selection modes.
The call to setLayoutOrientation
lets the list display its data in multiple columns. The value JList.HORIZONTAL_WRAP
specifies that the list should display its items from left to right before wrapping to a new row. Another possible value is JList.VERTICAL_WRAP
, which specifies that the data be displayed from top to bottom (as usual) before wrapping to a new column. The following figures show these two wrapping possibilities, together with the default, JList.VERTICAL
.
In combination with the call to setLayoutOrientation
, invoking setVisibleRowCount(-1)
makes the list display the maximum number of items possible in the available space onscreen. Another common use of setVisibleRowCount
is to specify to the lists's scroll pane how many rows the list prefers to display.
A list uses an instance of ListSelectionModel
to manage its selection. By default, a list selection model allows any combination of items to be selected at a time. You can specify a different selection mode by calling the setSelectionMode
method on the list. For example, both ListDialog
and ListDemo
set the selection mode to SINGLE_SELECTION
(a constant defined by ListSelectionModel
) so that only one item in the list can be selected. The following table describes the three list selection modes:
SINGLE_SELECTION
SINGLE_INTERVAL_SELECTION
MULTIPLE_INTERVAL_SELECTION
No matter which selection mode your list uses, the list fires list selection events whenever the selection changes. You can process these events by adding a list selection listener to the list with the addListSelectionListener
method. A list selection listener must implement one method: valueChanged
. Here is the valueChanged
method for the listener in ListDemo
:
public void valueChanged(ListSelectionEvent e) { if (e.getValueIsAdjusting() == false) { if (list.getSelectedIndex() == -1) { //No selection, disable fire button. fireButton.setEnabled(false); } else { //Selection, enable the fire button. fireButton.setEnabled(true); } } }
Many list selection events can be generated from a single user action such as a mouse click. The getValueIsAdjusting
method returns true
if the user is still manipulating the selection. This particular program is interested only in the final result of the user's action, so the valueChanged
method does something only if getValueIsAdjusting
returns false
.
Because the list is in single-selection mode, this code can use getSelectedIndex
to get the index of the just-selected item. JList
provides other methods for setting or getting the selection when the selection mode allows more than one item to be selected. If you want, you can listen for events on the list's list selection model rather than on the list itself. ListSelectionDemo is an example that shows how to listen for list selection events on the list selection model and lets you change the selection mode of a list dynamically.
The ListDemo example that we showed previously features a list whose contents can change. You can find the source code for ListDemo in ListDemo.java
. Here is the ListDemo code that creates a mutable list model object, puts the initial items in it, and uses the list model to create a list:
listModel = new DefaultListModel(); listModel.addElement("Jane Doe"); listModel.addElement("John Smith"); listModel.addElement("Kathy Green"); list = new JList(listModel);
This particular program uses an instance of DefaultListModel
, a class provided by Swing. In spite of the class name, a list does not have a DefaultListModel
unless your program explicitly makes it so. If DefaultListModel
does not suit your needs, you can write a custom list model, which must adhere to the ListModel
interface.
The following code snippet shows the actionPerformed
method for the action listener registered on the Fire button. The bold line of code removes the selected item in the list. The remaining lines in the method disable the fire button if the list is now empty, and make another selection if it is not.
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) { int index = list.getSelectedIndex(); listModel.remove(index); int size = listModel.getSize(); if (size == 0) { //Nobody's left, disable firing. fireButton.setEnabled(false); } else { //Select an index. if (index == listModel.getSize()) { //removed item in last position index--; } list.setSelectedIndex(index); list.ensureIndexIsVisible(index); } }
Here is the actionPerformed
method for the action listener shared by the Hire button and the text field:
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) { String name = employeeName.getText(); //User did not type in a unique name... if (name.equals("") || alreadyInList(name)) { Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().beep(); employeeName.requestFocusInWindow(); employeeName.selectAll(); return; } int index = list.getSelectedIndex(); //get selected index if (index == -1) { //no selection, so insert at beginning index = 0; } else { //add after the selected item index++; } listModel.insertElementAt(employeeName.getText(), index); //Reset the text field. employeeName.requestFocusInWindow(); employeeName.setText(""); //Select the new item and make it visible. list.setSelectedIndex(index); list.ensureIndexIsVisible(index); }
This code uses the list model's insertElementAt
method to insert the new name after the current selection or, if no selection exists, at the beginning of the list. If you just wish to add to the end of the list, you can use DefaultListModel
's addElement
method instead.
Whenever items are added to, removed from, or modified in a list, the list model fires list data events. Refer to How to Write a List Data Listener for information about listening for these events. That section contains an example that is similar to ListDemo
, but adds buttons that move items up or down in the list.
A list uses an object called a cell renderer to display each of its items. The default cell renderer knows how to display strings and icons and it displays Object
s by invoking toString
. If you want to change the way the default renderer display icons or strings, or if you want behavior different than what is provided by toString
, you can implement a custom cell renderer. Take these steps to provide a custom cell renderer for a list:
ListCellRenderer
interface.setCellRenderer
using the instance as an argument.We do not provide an example of a list with a custom cell renderer, but we do have an example of a combo box with a custom renderer — and combo boxes use the same type of renderer as lists. See the example described in Providing a Custom Renderer.
The List APIThe following tables list the commonly used JList
constructors and methods. Other methods you are most likely to invoke on a JList
object are those such as setPreferredSize
that its superclasses provide. See The JComponent API for tables of commonly used inherited methods.
Much of the operation of a list is managed by other objects. The items in the list are managed by a list model object, the selection is managed by a list selection model object, and most programs put a list in a scroll pane to handle scrolling. For the most part, you do not need to worry about the models because JList
creates them as necessary and you interact with them implicitly with JList
's convenience methods.
That said, the API for using lists falls into these categories:
Managing List Data Class or Method Purpose int getNextMatch(String, int, javax.swing.text.Position.Bias) Given the starting index, search through the list for an item that starts with the specified string and return that index (or -1 if the string is not found). The third argument, which specifies the search direction, can be eitherPosition.Bias.Forward
or Position.Bias.Backward
. For example, if you have a 6-item list, getNextMatch("Matisse", 5, javax.swing.text.Position.Bias.Forward)
searches for the string "Matisse" in the item at index 5, then (if necessary) at index 0, index 1, and so on. void setDragEnabled(boolean)
This table shows the examples that use JList
and where those examples are described.
See the Using JavaFX UI Controls: List View tutorial to learn how to create lists in JavaFX.
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