How to prevent toolbar button focus in Java Swing?

Question

In my Java Swing application I am using a JToolBar with several buttons. After the toolbar object is being created I call setFocusable(false). However, every time I start the application the first button in the toolbar is focused.

Any ideas how I can prevent the toolbar buttons to come into focus at all?

Do you set the toolbar **buttons** to be nonfocusable? – Hovercraft Full Of Eels Nov 23 '13 at 23:56 — Hovercraft Full Of Eels, Nov 23 '13 at 23:56
Probably it is better to use button.setFocusPainted(false). – ferrerverck Nov 24 '13 at 00:03 — ferrerverck, Nov 24 '13 at 00:03

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 14 '17 at 21:37

Firstly, Toolbar buttons should not have

setFocusable(false)

called on them, as it breaks keyboard support. Rather, call:

setRequestFocusEnabled(false)

which will stop them from taking over the focus when the mouse clicks them, but still lets keyboard-centric users "tab over" to them.

You probably want to select some other sensible component to place the initial keyboard focus onto. So just call:

otherComponent.requestFocusInWindow();

How to prevent toolbar button focus in Java Swing?

1 Answers1