JTabbedPane - focus last focused component after tab change

Question

When changing tabs, JTabbedPane always focuses the first focusable Component inside the tab. How can I change its behaviour so that it will either focus the last focused component or none at all? Invoking requestFocus afterwards is not an option because JTabbedPane must not set the focus in the wrong field at all.

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 19 '11 at 13:51

Take a look at: Remembering last focused component.

You need to keep track of which component has focus in each tab. Then when a tab is selected, you need to change focus to the appropriate component. Here is the code taken from the link above:

class TabbedPaneFocus extends JTabbedPane implements ChangeListener, PropertyChangeListener {

    private Hashtable tabFocus;

    public TabbedPaneFocus() {
        tabFocus = new Hashtable();
        addChangeListener(this);
        KeyboardFocusManager.getCurrentKeyboardFocusManager().addPropertyChangeListener(this);
    }

    /*
     * (non-Javadoc)
     * 
     * @see java.beans.PropertyChangeListener#propertyChange(java.beans.PropertyChangeEvent)
     */
    @Override
    public void propertyChange(PropertyChangeEvent e) {
        if ("permanentFocusOwner".equals(e.getPropertyName())) {
            final Object value = e.getNewValue();
            if (value != null) {
                tabFocus.put(getTitleAt(getSelectedIndex()), value);
            }
        }

    }

    /*
     * (non-Javadoc)
     * 
     * @see javax.swing.event.ChangeListener#stateChanged(javax.swing.event.ChangeEvent)
     */
    @Override
    public void stateChanged(ChangeEvent e) {
        Object value = tabFocus.get(getTitleAt(getSelectedIndex()));
        if (value != null) {
            ((Component) value).requestFocusInWindow();
        }
    }
}

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 19 '11 at 13:23

2

basically this works inside one Top-Level Container correctly

EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable() {

   @Override
     public void run() {
         someComponent.grabFocus();
         someComponent.requestFocus();//or inWindow
     }
});

answered Jul 19 '11 at 13:23

mKorbel

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How does this prevent JTabbedPane from setting the focus in the first field? – Markus Jul 19 '11 at 13:36
@Markus that's depends if first field <> expected field, then yes (and I can't identify what components is field, too) – mKorbel Jul 19 '11 at 13:44

JTabbedPane - focus last focused component after tab change

2 Answers2