Format JTextArea in Tabular format

Question

I am Doing Simple text Report on JTextArea in JApplet.

I am Trying to display this String of Array in Table format, it's quite work well but i want Integer number hould be in RightAlign and Text should be in LeftAlign.as well as please suggest me JTextArea is good or JTextpane is ?

To make simple Text report.my next target is to get input from XML file and display as in table structure, i know its too hard to make such thing, but what they say about "Nothing is impossible". so plz someone help me to do this i am completely stuck with this.

import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.Container;
import java.awt.FlowLayout;
import java.awt.Font;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import java.util.MissingFormatArgumentException;

import javax.swing.BorderFactory;
import javax.swing.JApplet;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JTextArea;
import javax.swing.border.Border;

public class MainReport extends JApplet implements ActionListener {
    String[] colName = new String[] { "Date", "Account.No", "Description",
            "Deposit", "Withdraw" };
    // here is my input of String Array.
    String a[][] = new String[][] {
            { "13/12/2013", "101", "AlphaSoftInfotekNashik", "3000", "0" },
            { "15/12/2013", "102", "Bank Ladger 2 xxxxxxxxxxxxx", "5000", "0" },
            { "16/12/2013", "103", "Accout Closing with Details", "800", "0" } };
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
    final String Header = "%s %85s%n%n%s %10s%n";
    // final String HRule ="";
    final String format = "|%1$-30s|%2$-30s|%3$-30s|%4$-30s|%5$-35s";
    final String NumColF = "";
    String cformat = "%20s";
    String format1 = "%20s";
    String s1 = "%61s";// for spillover text
    String s2 = "%10s";
    int i, j, k;
    int Position = 0;
    boolean flag = false;
    String a1, a2;
    Container c;

    JTextArea outputArea;
    public static final int LINES = 10;
    public static final int CHAR_PER_LINE = 40;
    JButton b;

    public void init() {
        c = getContentPane();
        c.setLayout(new FlowLayout());
        outputArea = new JTextArea(30, 60);
        outputArea.setLocation(100, 100);
        outputArea.setColumns(80);
        outputArea.setLineWrap(true);
        outputArea.setWrapStyleWord(false);
        // outputArea= new JTextArea(LINES,CHAR_PER_LINE);
        // outputArea.setSize(40, 40);
        Border border = BorderFactory.createLineBorder(Color.RED);
        outputArea.setBorder(BorderFactory.createCompoundBorder(border,BorderFactory.createEmptyBorder(10, 10, 10, 10)));
        c.add(outputArea);
        b = new JButton("Show Report");
        b.addActionListener(this);
        c.add(b);

    }

    public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) throws MissingFormatArgumentException {
        // here i am trying to make header as well as footer//footer is not
        // created yet but its my plan to add next.
        outputArea.setEditable(false);
        outputArea.setFont(new Font("Times New Roman", Font.PLAIN, 14));
        outputArea.setText(" ");
        outputArea.append(String.format("%s %n", " "));
        outputArea.append(String.format(format, colName));

        for (i = 0; i < a.length; i++) {
            outputArea.append("\n");
            for (j = 0; j < a[i].length; j++) {
                if (a[i][j].length() > 20) {
                    a1 = a[i][j].substring(0, 20);
                    flag = true;
                    Position = j;
                    outputArea.append(a1 + String.format(s2, ' '));
                    a2 = a[i][j].substring(20);
                } else {
                    outputArea.append(a[i][j] + String.format(cformat, ' '));
                }
            }
            if (flag == true) {
                outputArea.append(String.format("%n", ' '));
                flag = false;
                for (k = 0; k < a[i].length; k++) {
                    if (k == Position) {
                        outputArea.append(String.format(s1, ' ') + a2);
                    }
                }
            }
            outputArea.append("\n");
        }
    }

}

Answer 1

You may use JEditorPane instead of JtextArea. there you use

    SetContentType("text/html");

Method and then use html tables to display data.

http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_tables.asp

You may also use tabs '/t' to part the words to just look like a table and giving a '|' in between them...

Answer 2

Use a JTable for tabular data! See How to Use Tables for details.

import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.Container;
import java.awt.FlowLayout;
import java.awt.Font;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import java.util.MissingFormatArgumentException;

import javax.swing.*;
import javax.swing.border.Border;

public class MainReport extends JApplet {
    String[] colName = new String[] { "Date", "Account.No", "Description",
            "Deposit", "Withdraw" };
    // here is my input of String Array.
    String a[][] = new String[][] {
            { "13/12/2013", "101", "AlphaSoftInfotekNashik", "3000", "0" },
            { "15/12/2013", "102", "Bank Ladger 2 xxxxxxxxxxxxx", "5000", "0" },
            { "16/12/2013", "103", "Accout Closing with Details", "800", "0" } };
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
    final String Header = "%s %85s%n%n%s %10s%n";
    // final String HRule ="";
    final String format = "|%1$-30s|%2$-30s|%3$-30s|%4$-30s|%5$-35s";
    final String NumColF = "";
    String cformat = "%20s";
    String format1 = "%20s";
    String s1 = "%61s";// for spillover text
    String s2 = "%10s";
    int i, j, k;
    int Position = 0;
    boolean flag = false;
    String a1, a2;
    Container c;

    JTable outputArea;
    public static final int LINES = 10;
    public static final int CHAR_PER_LINE = 40;
    JButton b;

    public void init() {
        c = getContentPane();
        c.setLayout(new FlowLayout());
        outputArea = new JTable(a, colName);
        //outputArea.setLocation(100, 100);  // pointless when using layout managers..
        Border border = BorderFactory.createLineBorder(Color.RED);
        outputArea.setBorder(BorderFactory.createCompoundBorder(border,BorderFactory.createEmptyBorder(10, 10, 10, 10)));
        c.add(outputArea);
        b = new JButton("Show Report");
        c.add(b);
    }
}