Belongs to following categories: Extension, ULC6.0,
Purpose
Form-based applications enable users to efficently enter or update data. The default behaviour of Swing's text field is somewhat cumbersome for such applications, though. On gaining focus
JTextField (and therefore
ULCTextField) just places the caret at the end of the text in a text field. Usually, it is much more convenient if the entire text gets selected as soon as the text field gains focus.
This contribution demonstrates how to adapt
ULCTextField. The 5.2 version is based on Etienne's PatchedUITextField class which comes with
Lookup TextField. The 6.0 version doesn't need that because of the vastly improved extension API. As you can see from the source code the extension is way smaller.
Resources
Related To
How to use
You instantiate, configure, and use a
ULCSelectOnFocusTextField like a
ULCTextField.
How it is implemented
The
UISelectOnFocusTextField class serves as a proxy to the
ULCSelectOnFocusTextField class.
UISelectOnFocusTextField inherits from
PatchedUITextField and
ULCSelectOnFocusTextField inherits from
ULCTextField.
UISelectOnFocusTextField features an internal class
UIJTextField which overrides the standard Swing text selection business on focus gaining. In addition,
UISelectOnFocusTextField handles the additional SelectOnFocus property.
The version for ULC 6.0 directly inherits from UITextField.
Compatibility
The version for ULC 5.2 has been developed and tested using JDK 1.4.2_05 and ULC 5.2 on Mac OS X 10.3.5. The version for ULC 6.0 has been developed and tested using JDK 1.4.2_09 and ULC 6.0 on Mac OS X 10.4.6.
P.S.
The current version fixes a bug where an empty text field didn't behave as expected (no selection and visible caret). ULC 5.2.1 fixes another bug: edited text fields now behave as expected on focus gained.
P.P.S.
Both versions have been updated. SelectOnFocusTextField does now work as expected when a data type is set.
Author
bruno
