Color trouble with JComboBox

Question

I'm having trouble setting the background and foreground colors for disabled combo boxes. The thing is that the nasty Java system code uses the ComboBox.disabledForeground and ComboBox.disabledBackground UI values to set a combo boxes colors when it is disabled. They do NOT use the combo boxes (or renderers) background and foreground colors and overwrites whatever you set them to. This is all well and good if you plan to have ALL of your combo boxes use the same color schema as you can use the commands
UIManager.getDefaults().put( "ComboBox.disabledForeground", color1 );
UIManager.getDefaults().put( "ComboBox.disabledBackground", color2 );
Unfortunately I have two separate panals where I want different color schemas to be used. Dang!
I know very little about UI stuff. Is there any way to set attributes for components under specific panels? Is there any way to bypass the nasty Java system code? Do I have any hope at all?

Answer 1

I handled it this way....
* Copyright UPMC Health System, 2001 - All rights reserved.
* This notice must not be removed or modified under any circumstances.
package upmc.dsi.editor;
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.util.*;
import javax.swing.*;
import javax.swing.plaf.basic.*;
import upmc.dsi.util.*;
* JComboBoxEditor is an extension of JComboBox that implements the
* EditingComponent interface. It also sets up listeners so that if any child
* components fire an action, listeners to this component will be notified. This
* is particularly necessary since events like focusGained are not reported to
* listeners otherwise.
* @author     $Author: kellymt $
* @version     $Revision: 1.11 $ $Date: 2003/12/05 18:08:11Z $
public class JComboBoxEditor extends JComboBox
    implements EditingComponent, FocusListener, KeyListener
    // A editor that uses the colors of this combo box to display the
    // items. If the user elects to use a different editor, it will be
    // up to him to use the appropriate colors.
    class LocalEditor extends BasicComboBoxEditor
        public Component getEditorComponent()
            Component pEditorComponent = super.getEditorComponent();
            pEditorComponent.setBackground( getBoxBackground() );
            pEditorComponent.setForeground( getBoxForeground() );
            return pEditorComponent;
    // A renderer that uses the colors of this combo box to render the
    // items. If the user elects to use a different renderer, it will be
    // up to him to use the appropriate colors.
    class LocalRenderer extends DefaultListCellRenderer
        public LocalRenderer()
            super();
        public Component getListCellRendererComponent(
            JList list,
            Object value,
            int index,
            boolean isSelected,
            boolean cellHasFocus )
            Component pLabel = super.getListCellRendererComponent(
                list,
                value,
                index,
                isSelected,
                cellHasFocus );
            if ( ! isSelected )
                setForeground( getBoxForeground() );
                setBackground( getBoxBackground() );
            return pLabel;
     * Constructs an instance of this class and registers as a listener to all
     * of it's children for those events that need to be propagated.
    public JComboBoxEditor()
        super();
        setRenderer( new LocalRenderer() );
        setEditor( new LocalEditor() );
    protected Color getBoxForeground() {return getForeground();};
    protected Color getBoxBackground() {return getBackground();};
}