Use Enter Key Act Like Tab Key on jTable

Question

I'm stuck from 2 days in my project i cant implement how to make the ENTER KEY act like TAB KEY i tried key listener but the ENTER KEY have a default feature for JTable so it's not working it's keep moving down. I google it discovered that i need to use key binding but i'm unable to implement it.

Can anyone give me a full coded example of this on a JTable ??? Please need you help.

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

The basic twist would be to use the key bindings API, which will allow you to override, in most cases, the default behaviour keys on many components.

This example basically applies the same named action to the Enter and Tab keys, this makes it easy to modify their behaviour through the use of a single Action.

import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.EventQueue;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.KeyEvent;
import javax.swing.AbstractAction;
import javax.swing.Action;
import javax.swing.ActionMap;
import javax.swing.InputMap;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JScrollPane;
import javax.swing.JTable;
import javax.swing.KeyStroke;
import javax.swing.UIManager;
import javax.swing.UnsupportedLookAndFeelException;
import javax.swing.table.DefaultTableModel;

public class Test101 {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        new Test101();
    }

    public Test101() {
        EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                try {
                    UIManager.setLookAndFeel(UIManager.getSystemLookAndFeelClassName());
                } catch (ClassNotFoundException | InstantiationException | IllegalAccessException | UnsupportedLookAndFeelException ex) {
                }

                JTable table = new JTable();
                InputMap im = table.getInputMap();
                im.put(KeyStroke.getKeyStroke(KeyEvent.VK_ENTER, 0), "Action.NextCell");
                im.put(KeyStroke.getKeyStroke(KeyEvent.VK_TAB, 0), "Action.NextCell");

                ActionMap am = table.getActionMap();
                am.put("Action.NextCell", new NextCellActioin(table));

                DefaultTableModel model = new DefaultTableModel(10, 10);
                table.setModel(model);

                JFrame frame = new JFrame("Testing");
                frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
                frame.setLayout(new BorderLayout());
                frame.add(new JScrollPane(table));
                frame.pack();
                frame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
                frame.setVisible(true);
            }
        });
    }

    public class NextCellActioin extends AbstractAction {

        private JTable table;

        public NextCellActioin(JTable table) {
            this.table = table;
        }

        @Override
        public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
            int col = table.getSelectedColumn();
            int row = table.getSelectedRow();

            int colCount = table.getColumnCount();
            int rowCount = table.getRowCount();

            col++;
            if (col >= colCount) {
                col = 0;
                row++;
            }

            if (row >= rowCount) {
                row = 0;
            }

            table.getSelectionModel().setSelectionInterval(row, row);
            table.getColumnModel().getSelectionModel().setSelectionInterval(col, col);
        }

    }

}

The functionality of Tab is controlled by changing the default focus behaviour through the focus manager as I recall

Answer 2

    KeyStroke tab = KeyStroke.getKeyStroke(KeyEvent.VK_TAB, 0);
    KeyStroke enter = KeyStroke.getKeyStroke(KeyEvent.VK_ENTER, 0);
    InputMap im = table.getInputMap(JTable.WHEN_ANCESTOR_OF_FOCUSED_COMPONENT);
    im.put(enter, im.get(tab));

Answer 3

You can specify the behavior at the action map and input map of the JTable:

InputMap im = table.getInputMap(JComponent.WHEN_ANCESTOR_OF_FOCUSED_COMPONENT);
Object actionKey = new Object();

im.put(KeyStroke.getKeyStroke(KeyEvent.VK_ENTER, 0), actionKey);
table.getActionMap().put(actionKey, new AbstractAction() {
    @Override
    public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent event) {
        // Do something for ENTER
    }
});

The default behavior you talk about is present in the action map, initialized by default.