Comments on: JTextArea with popup menu – JPopupTextArea

By: David Sowsy

David Sowsy — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 21:04:12 +0000

Hi Nick,

First off I want to thank you for providing this code. I have noticed a few problems and want to provide their solutions. I was getting a NullPointerExceptions when using your code for a second instance of the JPopupTextArea in a JPanel when adding to the menu.

I removed getActionByName, removed the actions HashMap, and
made the following changes:

final static String COPY = "Copy";
final static String CUT = "Cut";
final static String PASTE = "Paste";
final static String SELECTALL = "Select All";

private void addPopupMenu() {
final JPopupMenu menu = new JPopupMenu();
final JMenuItem copyItem = new JMenuItem();
copyItem.setAction(getActionMap().get(DefaultEditorKit.copyAction));
copyItem.setText(COPY);

final JMenuItem cutItem = new JMenuItem();
cutItem.setAction(getActionMap().get(DefaultEditorKit.cutAction));
cutItem.setText(CUT);

final JMenuItem pasteItem = new JMenuItem(PASTE);
pasteItem.setAction(getActionMap().get(DefaultEditorKit.pasteAction));
pasteItem.setText(PASTE);

final JMenuItem selectAllItem = new JMenuItem(SELECTALL);
selectAllItem.setAction(getActionMap().get(DefaultEditorKit.selectAllAction));
selectAllItem.setText(SELECTALL);

menu.add(copyItem);
menu.add(cutItem);
menu.add(pasteItem);
menu.add(new JSeparator());
menu.add(selectAllItem);

add(menu);
addMouseListener(new PopupTriggerMouseListener(menu, this));
}

Best Regards,
David

By: Nick

Nick — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 08:47:54 +0000

Hi Nelson. Thanks for the feedback! Yes using an anonymous inner class mouse adapter to trigger the popup works just as well. At the time I wrote this blog article I think I must have wanted a drop in replacement for the old AWT TextArea class which provided a default popup menu without having to code up extra mouse listeners etc – which is what the code above attempts to provide.

If you check the mouse event with e.isPopupTrigger() that is a platform independent way to detect whether the correct mouse button has been pressed, since different OS may have different conventions relating to how a user triggers the popup menu. If you read the javadocs on MouseEvent.isPopupTrigger it mentions that you need to check this on both mousePressed() and mouseReleased(). I’ll update my code to do that exactly as it suggests!

By: Nelson

Nelson — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 08:11:58 +0000

HI, my name is Nelson. Honestly, I don’t know much about Java, but I found out that is not that complicate to create a TextArea’s PopupMenu after all. Check this code and let me know if it helps you.

private JTextArea getJTextArea() {
if (jTextArea == null) {
jTextArea = new JTextArea();
jTextArea.add(getJPopupMenuEdicion());
jTextArea.addMouseListener(new java.awt.event.MouseAdapter() {
public void mouseClicked(java.awt.event.MouseEvent e) {
if (e.getButton()==MouseEvent.BUTTON3){
//getJPopupMenuEdicion();
jPopupMenuEdicion.show(jTextArea, e.getX(), e.getY());
jPopupMenuEdicion.setVisible(true);
}
}
});
}
return jTextArea;
}

private JPopupMenu getJPopupMenuEdicion() {
if (jPopupMenuEdicion == null) {
jPopupMenuEdicion = new JPopupMenu();
jPopupMenuEdicion.add(getJPopupMenuItemCopiar());
jPopupMenuEdicion.add(getJPopupMenuItemCortar());
jPopupMenuEdicion.add(getJPopupMenuItemPegar());

}
return jPopupMenuEdicion;
}

Sorry if it is a little messed up. By the way, I’m using Eclipse, but on this code I had to figure it out by myself.

Let me know your opinion, thanks.
P.D.: I’m from Argentina, so all the unknown words are in Spanish:
Copiar = Copy
Cortar = Cut
Pegar = Paste
Edicion = Edition

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