Clear current FocusOwner (jTextfield)

Question

Developing an application in swing, just a little query :-

I want to clear the current focus owner textfield using a button. It is possible to determine whether a textfield is the current focus owner or not using isFocusOwner() but how to clear the textfield which is currently on focus?

Thanks!!!

Answer 1

You might be able use a TextAction. A TextAction has access to the last text component that had focus. So then in the text action you just clear the text in the component. All the logic is fully contained in the one place.

Here is an example that demonstrates the concept of using a TextAction. In this case the number represented by the button is appended to the text field with focus:

import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import javax.swing.*;
import javax.swing.border.*;
import javax.swing.text.*;

public class NumpadPanel extends JPanel
{
    public NumpadPanel()
    {
        setLayout( new BorderLayout() );

        JTextField textField1 = new JTextField(4);
        JTextField textField2 = new JTextField(2);
        JTextField textField3 = new JTextField(2);

        JPanel panel = new JPanel();
        panel.add( textField1 );
        panel.add( textField2 );
        panel.add( textField3 );
        add(panel, BorderLayout.PAGE_START);

        Action numberAction = new TextAction("")
        {
            @Override
            public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)
            {
                JTextComponent textComponent = getFocusedComponent();

                if (textComponent != null)
                    textComponent.replaceSelection(e.getActionCommand());
            }
        };

        JPanel buttonPanel = new JPanel();
        buttonPanel.setLayout( new GridLayout(0, 5) );
        add(buttonPanel, BorderLayout.CENTER);

        for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++)
        {
            String text = String.valueOf(i);
            JButton button = new JButton( text );
            button.addActionListener( numberAction );
            button.setMargin( new Insets(20, 20, 20, 20) );
            button.setFocusable( false );
            buttonPanel.add( button );
        }
    }

    private static void createAndShowUI()
    {
        JFrame frame = new JFrame("Numpad Panel");
        frame.setDefaultCloseOperation( JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE );
        frame.add( new NumpadPanel() );
        frame.pack();
        frame.setLocationRelativeTo( null );
        frame.setVisible(true);
    }

    public static void main(String[] args)
    {
        EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable()
        {
            public void run()
            {
                createAndShowUI();
            }
        });
    }
}

In your case instead of using the replaceSelection() method you would just use the setText() method.