Belongs to following categories: Extension, ULC6.0, ULC6.1, ULC6.2,
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Purpose
This extension provides a text field with additional lookup
functionality. The lookup is achieved by choosing a value from a popup
list which is displayed on demand. While typing in the text field, the
filter set on the
ULCLookupTextField is queried to
narrow down the choices in the popup list. Browsing the lookup list and
selecting a value can be achieved with mouse or keyboard. The
ULCLookupTextField is highly configurable.
The Lookup List includes the following features:
- search results are narrowed down while typing
- choose value from popup list and accept selection by pressing
<Enter>
- accept selection and move to next/previous component by
pressing <Tab>/<Shift><Tab>
- accept selection by double-clicking on popup list item
- close popup list without accepting selection by pressing
<Esc>
- browse through popup list using <Up>, <Down>,
<PgUp>, and <PgDown>
- double-click on text field to open popup list
- text input that is not valid is shown in different foreground
color
- configurable icon is displayed to distinguish the widget from
a plain text field
- custom filter strategies can be set
- widget is backed by a model
- all attributes can be changed at runtime
- add listener to be notified about selection changes
Resources
How to use
You instantiate, configure, and add an
ULCLookupTextField
like any other ULC widget, as will be shown in the example below.
The constructor requires the parent window in which the new lookup text
field will reside.
ULCLookupTextField field = new ULCLookupTextField(parentWindow);
You define the data available to the data lookup list by implementing
the
ILookupTextFieldModel and setting it on the
ULCLookupTextField. A
DefaultLookupTextFieldModel
is available which is based on a string array. By default, an empty
DefaultLookupTextFieldModel is set on the widget.
field.setModel(new DefaultLookupTextFieldModel(new String{"Homer", "Marge", "Bart", "Lisa", "Maggie"}));
On the widget, a string filter must be set which decides for each
element of the
ILookupTextFieldModel if it matches
a given input string. By default, a
Perl5RegExpStringFilter
is set on the widget.
field.setFilter(new GlobRegExpStringFilter());
Additional aspects of the Look&Feel can be set, like the number of
visible rows of the lookup list, the maximum number of rows to select
from, and the foreground color to signal invalid user input. If the
number of elements that match the filter is higher than the maximum
number of rows to select from, these additional elements will not be
shown but an ellipsis ('...').
field.setVisibleLookupRowCount(5);
field.setMaxLookupRowCount(12);
field.setErrorForeground(Color.orange);
In order to visually distinguish a
ULCTextField
from a
ULCLookupTextField, each instance of a
ULCLookupTextField can be configured with an icon
which is displayed at the right border of the widget.
field.setIndicatorIcon(new ULCIcon(DemoLookup.class.getResource("/down.png")));
field.setIndicatorIconGap(3);
How it is implemented
The
UILookupTextField class serves as a proxy to
the
ULCLookupTextField class.
UILookupTextField
inherits from
PatchedUITextField and
ULCLookupTextField inherits from
ULCTextField.
The class
PatchedUITextField will be obsolete with
the release of ULC 5.2.1.
UILookupTextField listens to events from the
underlying
JTextField and handles as much event
processing as possible on the client side. The server-side is only
queried for updating the lookup list data.
Compatibility
- ULC 6.0: JDK 1.4.2
- ULC 6.1: JDK 1.4.2
- ULC 6.2: JDK 1.4.2, JDK 1.5, JDK 1.6, Windows XP, Windows
Vista, Mac OSX Tiger
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Author
etienne
