Adding JTree to JFileChooser

Question

I am new to JTrees and have a query :

If we can add a tree of files and directories available in our system in JFileChooser. Basically I want to have a custom JFileChooser where files and directories can be shown in the form of the tree.

Thanks in advance :)

I have created a tree that is taking the current files of my system but how to display that tree in JFileChooser. Here is the code for JTree

public class FileTree extends JPanel {

 /** Construct a FileTree */
  public FileTree(File dir) {
  setLayout(new BorderLayout());

   // Make a tree list with all the nodes, and make it a JTree
  JTree tree = new JTree(addNodes(null, dir));

  // Lastly, put the JTree into a JScrollPane.
  JScrollPane scrollpane = new JScrollPane();
  scrollpane.getViewport().add(tree);
  add(BorderLayout.CENTER, scrollpane);
  }

   /** Add nodes from under "dir" into curTop. Highly recursive. */
   DefaultMutableTreeNode addNodes(DefaultMutableTreeNode curTop, File dir) 
 {
  String curPath = dir.getPath();
  DefaultMutableTreeNode curDir = new DefaultMutableTreeNode(curPath);
  if (curTop != null) { // should only be null at root
  curTop.add(curDir);
  }
  Vector ol = new Vector();
  String[] tmp = dir.list();
  for (int i = 0; i < tmp.length; i++)
   ol.addElement(tmp[i]);
  Collections.sort(ol, String.CASE_INSENSITIVE_ORDER);
   File f;
   Vector files = new Vector();
   // Make two passes, one for Dirs and one for Files. This is #1.
   for (int i = 0; i < ol.size(); i++) {
    String thisObject = (String) ol.elementAt(i);
    String newPath;
    if (curPath.equals("."))
      newPath = thisObject;
    else
     newPath = curPath + File.separator + thisObject;
    if ((f = new File(newPath)).isDirectory())
     addNodes(curDir, f);
    else
    files.addElement(thisObject);
    }
    // Pass two: for files.
   for (int fnum = 0; fnum < files.size(); fnum++)
    curDir.add(new DefaultMutableTreeNode(files.elementAt(fnum)));
    return curDir;
   }

    public Dimension getMinimumSize() {
    return new Dimension(200, 400);
     }

    public Dimension getPreferredSize() {
    return new Dimension(200, 400);
    }

    /** Main: make a Frame, add a FileTree */
    public static void main(String[] av) {

    JFrame frame = new JFrame("FileTree");
    frame.setForeground(Color.black);
    frame.setBackground(Color.lightGray);
    Container cp = frame.getContentPane();

    if (av.length == 0) {
    cp.add(new FileTree(new File(".")));
    } else {
    cp.setLayout(new BoxLayout(cp, BoxLayout.X_AXIS));
     for (int i = 0; i < av.length; i++)
     cp.add(new FileTree(new File(av[i])));
   }

    frame.pack();
   frame.setVisible(true);
   frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
   }
   }

Answer 1

This is a very broad question, but here are a couple of pointers.

If you try to integrate it with a jFileChooser things may get messy, it is possible though.

I suggest you instead use your code but with a few changes to act like a jFileChooser.

First: add a Select/Open button to your FileTree panel. When this button is pushed you can make a quick method to get a list of the selected files and save them to a shared variable.

Secondly: you could use a shared variable to pass the information from the FileTree popup window back to the thread it was called from (you could also have a change listener checking for the updated variable), and then you can do your intended task with the returned files, just like a return statement from a jFileChooser.

Note: Make sure you only call your FileTree class from a separate thread than the EDT (Or you could block the EDT, but that's normally not a good idea):