Java Swing slider labels not updating according to slider min/max values

Question

The label table on my JSlider is not updated according to the slider minimum and maximum values when these values change. The minimum/maximum values are updated correctly as the getMinimum() and getMaximum() methods return the correct values. The automatic labels below the slider show incorrect values.

Below is a standalone example with this problem. The code is mostly automatically generated by the Eclipse window builder/Swing designer.

Pressing the buttons on the sides of the slider changes the slider maximum value.

import java.awt.EventQueue;

import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JPanel;

import java.awt.BorderLayout;

import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;

import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JSlider;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.event.ChangeEvent;
import javax.swing.event.ChangeListener;

public class SliderTrouble implements ActionListener
{

    private JFrame frame;
    private JSlider slider;
    private JLabel lblMin;
    private JLabel lblMax;
    private JLabel lblCurrent;
    private int sliderMax = 100;
    private int sliderMajorSpacing = sliderMax / 4;

    /**
     * Launch the application.
     */
    public static void main(String[] args)
    {
        EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable()
        {
            public void run()
            {
                try
                {
                    SliderTrouble window = new SliderTrouble();
                    window.frame.setVisible(true);
                } catch (Exception e)
                {
                    e.printStackTrace();
                }
            }
        });
    }

    /**
     * Create the application.
     */
    public SliderTrouble()
    {
        initialize();
    }

    /**
     * Initialize the contents of the frame.
     */
    private void initialize()
    {
        frame = new JFrame();
        frame.setTitle("Slider problems");
        frame.setBounds(100, 100, 481, 122);
        frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        frame.getContentPane().setLayout(new BorderLayout(0, 0));

        JPanel panel = new JPanel();
        frame.getContentPane().add(panel, BorderLayout.CENTER);

        JButton btnNewButton = new JButton("100");
        btnNewButton.setBounds(10, 22, 64, 23);
        btnNewButton.addActionListener(new ActionListener()
        {
            public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)
            {
                System.out.println("Pressed 100. Since this is the default value, everything is ok.");
                sliderMax = 100;
                sliderMajorSpacing = sliderMax / 4;
                changeSlider(sliderMax, sliderMajorSpacing);
            }
        });
        panel.setLayout(null);
        panel.add(btnNewButton);

        class SliderListener implements ChangeListener
        {
            public void stateChanged(ChangeEvent e)
            {
                JSlider slider = (JSlider) e.getSource();
                if (slider.getValueIsAdjusting())
                {
                    updateCurrent(slider.getValue());
                }
            }
        }

        slider = new JSlider();
        slider.setBounds(79, 11, 300, 45);
        slider.setMajorTickSpacing(sliderMajorSpacing);
        slider.setPaintTicks(true);
        slider.setPaintLabels(true);
        slider.setMaximum(sliderMax);
        slider.addChangeListener(new SliderListener());
        panel.add(slider);

        JButton btnNewButton_1 = new JButton("196");
        btnNewButton_1.setBounds(389, 22, 62, 23);
        btnNewButton_1.addActionListener(new ActionListener()
        {
            public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)
            {
                System.out.println("Pressed 196. The actual minimum and maximum values are updated correctly. getValue gets the correct value. The little gray tick lines are not updated accordingly. The text labels are done according to the default (button '100') settings, showing a max at 175 instead of 196. 175 is the closest multiple of 25 (which is the default major tick space).");
                sliderMax = 196;
                sliderMajorSpacing = sliderMax / 4;
                changeSlider(sliderMax, sliderMajorSpacing);
            }
        });

        panel.add(btnNewButton_1);

        JPanel panel_1 = new JPanel();
        frame.getContentPane().add(panel_1, BorderLayout.SOUTH);

        JLabel lblSliderMin = new JLabel("Slider min:");
        panel_1.add(lblSliderMin);

        lblMin = new JLabel();
        lblMin.setText(String.valueOf(slider.getMinimum()));
        panel_1.add(lblMin);

        JLabel lblMax_1 = new JLabel("max:");
        panel_1.add(lblMax_1);

        lblMax = new JLabel();
        lblMax.setText(String.valueOf(slider.getMaximum()));
        panel_1.add(lblMax);

        JLabel lblCur = new JLabel("current:");
        panel_1.add(lblCur);

        lblCurrent = new JLabel();
        lblCurrent.setText(String.valueOf(slider.getValue()));
        panel_1.add(lblCurrent);

        //frame.pack();
    }

    private void changeSlider(int max, int majspace)
    {
        slider.setMajorTickSpacing(majspace);
        slider.setMaximum(max);

        System.out.println("max: " + max + " major: " + sliderMajorSpacing);

        updateText(slider.getMinimum(), slider.getMaximum(), slider.getValue());
    }

    private void updateText(int minimum, int maximum, int value)
    {
        lblMin.setText(String.valueOf(minimum));
        lblMax.setText(String.valueOf(maximum));
        lblCurrent.setText(String.valueOf(value));
    }

    private void updateCurrent(int value)
    {
        lblCurrent.setText(String.valueOf(value));
    }

    public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent arg0)
    {   
    }
}

Answer 1

Looks like the setMajorTickSpacing() does not actually update anything when called on a slider that has a previous set of labels. That can be worked around by calling

slider.setLabelTable(null);

before setting the new tick spacing to force recreating the labels.