Drawing border around JLabel when selected, like the Buttons

Question

I was trying to paint border around JLabel when it is clicked. Just like JButtons are painted.

I thought it would be easy but I failed to do the job.

I tried to figure out what happens to JButtons when clicked by putting breakpoints in source codes. But I got lost, however, I have a feeling that javax.swing.plaf and its subpackages are what I need.

Am I right? Is there a simpler way to do the job.

Here is an example:

Answer 1

You could add MouseListener to your label and setup a border in mousePressed/mouseReleased methods. Here is a simplified example:

    label.addMouseListener(new MouseAdapter(){
        @Override
        public void mousePressed(MouseEvent arg0) {
            label.setBorder(BorderFactory.createLineBorder(Color.black));
        }
        @Override
        public void mouseReleased(MouseEvent arg0) {
            label.setBorder(null);
        }
    });

Also, as an alternative you can make a button with a flat style that will look like a label. This answer can be useful.