jtextfield query

[Acidburn]

Hey guys I've got a JText field set up and i append strings to the JTextField but im wondering how to invidually set the color of each string that i append? I've taken a look at the JLabel class and I did come up with the idea that I could just make a new JLabel and set the color and string and then paint that onto a JTextField. However this doesnt appear to work. Nothing gets display if I attempt to do it this way.

Is there a work around? I know the JTextField has its own setForegroundColor(); but this sets it for the whole text thats present.

[masijade]

AFAIK, you can't. Use a JLabel or JTextArea.

[Ezzaral]

Yes, JTextField only supports single-styled text. For styled text you need to use JEditorPane or JTextPane http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/uiswing/components/editorpane.html
or HTML markup within a JLabel.

[Acidburn]

hmmm, it would appear that it gets it source from an HTML format? Not really what I had in mind. My system is producing strings and I'd liked them to be placed on a canvas. I've attempted to add JLabels to it and, it works but doesnt look that nice. Also adding JLabels isn't that safe.

[Ezzaral]

I'm not quite following you. You mentioned placing them in a JTextField, but here you mention placing them on a canvas. Which is the case? One involves styled-text within an editing component, whereas painting them on a canvas evokes an expectation of custom 2D graphics rendering. Also, the comment about JLabels not being safe is a bit unclear.

[Acidburn]

At the minute I've got a JTextField which I write Strings to (my system produces String messages which I wish to show to the user via my gui window).

Certain messages come through and at the minute they are all the same color. I wish to seperate out the different messages and make them a specfic color accordingly.

I've had a look at the JTextPane and EditorPane they both from what I understand construct themselves via a HTML markup document ? Please correct me if I'm wrong.

I read somewhere that its bad to place a label in a JTextPane / EditorPane (Will dig it out and post it)

[Ezzaral]

You do not have to use HTML markup to created styled text in JTextPane. In addition to the tutorial link I posted above, perhaps these examples will help:
http://www.exampledepot.com/egs/javax.swing.text/style_HiliteWords2.html

As far as the JLabel, you're right, you don't place it in a JTextPane - but then that wasn't really the nature of the suggestion. The intent was that you could use a JLabel in place of JTextField or JTextPane in your container and use HTML markup to control the style and formatting of the displayed text.

[Acidburn]

ok I've gone down the route of making it a JTextPane, I'm lost in how to append text to the pane?

[Ezzaral]

The TextSamplerDemo from Sun has some example code on adding styled text to a JTextPane. It's a bit different than working with JTextField because the text pane utilizes a styled document. Since there is a lot of clutter from other text component code in that demo, I'll paste the two relevant methods here

private JTextPane createTextPane() {
    String[] initString =
            { "This is an editable JTextPane, ",            //regular
              "another ",                                   //italic
              "styled ",                                    //bold
              "text ",                                      //small
              "component, ",                                //large
              "which supports embedded components..." + newline,//regular
              " " + newline,                                //button
              "...and embedded icons..." + newline,         //regular
              " ",                                          //icon
              newline + "JTextPane is a subclass of JEditorPane that " +
                "uses a StyledEditorKit and StyledDocument, and provides " +
                "cover methods for interacting with those objects."
             };

    String[] initStyles =
            { "regular", "italic", "bold", "small", "large",
              "regular", "button", "regular", "icon",
              "regular"
            };

    JTextPane textPane = new JTextPane();
    StyledDocument doc = textPane.getStyledDocument();
    addStylesToDocument(doc);

    try {
        for (int i=0; i < initString.length; i++) {
            doc.insertString(doc.getLength(), initString[i],
                             doc.getStyle(initStyles[i]));
        }
    } catch (BadLocationException ble) {
        System.err.println("Couldn't insert initial text into text pane.");
    }

    return textPane;
}

protected void addStylesToDocument(StyledDocument doc) {
    //Initialize some styles.
    Style def = StyleContext.getDefaultStyleContext().
                    getStyle(StyleContext.DEFAULT_STYLE);

    Style regular = doc.addStyle("regular", def);
    StyleConstants.setFontFamily(def, "SansSerif");

    Style s = doc.addStyle("italic", regular);
    StyleConstants.setItalic(s, true);

    s = doc.addStyle("bold", regular);
    StyleConstants.setBold(s, true);

    s = doc.addStyle("small", regular);
    StyleConstants.setFontSize(s, 10);

    s = doc.addStyle("large", regular);
    StyleConstants.setFontSize(s, 16);

    s = doc.addStyle("icon", regular);
    StyleConstants.setAlignment(s, StyleConstants.ALIGN_CENTER);
    ImageIcon pigIcon = createImageIcon("images/Pig.gif",
                                        "a cute pig");
    if (pigIcon != null) {
        StyleConstants.setIcon(s, pigIcon);
    }

    s = doc.addStyle("button", regular);
    StyleConstants.setAlignment(s, StyleConstants.ALIGN_CENTER);
    ImageIcon soundIcon = createImageIcon("images/sound.gif",
                                          "sound icon");
    JButton button = new JButton();
    if (soundIcon != null) {
        button.setIcon(soundIcon);
    } else {
        button.setText("BEEP");
    }
    button.setCursor(Cursor.getDefaultCursor());
    button.setMargin(new Insets(0,0,0,0));
    button.setActionCommand(buttonString);
    button.addActionListener(this);
    StyleConstants.setComponent(s, button);
}

They are basically concatenating the various strings from their array to end of the document with the desired style with the insertString() method.

Hope that helps a bit.