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

Question

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

Answer 1

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();
        }
    }

}

Answer 2

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();
                }
            });

        }
    }
});

Answer 3

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.

Answer 4

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();
                            }
                    });

            }
        }
    });

Answer 5

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();
            }
        });
    }
});