Customizing "Disabled" color for specific components only

Question

Hello,
when uncommenting the "UIManager.put(...)" line in the following code all combos display their text ungreyed when disabled. But how to proceed, if you want to give this feature only to specific combos? Setting the foreground colour, even when done in an own renderer, doesn't work.
There has been a discussion of the same problem in
http://forum.java.sun.com/thread.jspa?forumID=57&threadID=276411
but it always comes back to the overall solution with the UIManager.
If the solution should be to write an own ComboUI, does anybody have an example, for my own attempt badly failed.
import java.awt.*;
import javax.swing.*;
import javax.swing.plaf.*;
public class TextColor extends javax.swing.JFrame {
  public TextColor() {
    setSize(350,300);
    setDefaultCloseOperation(WindowConstants.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
    Container cp= getContentPane();
    cp.setLayout(null);
    JComboBox cmb1 = new JComboBox();
    cmb1.addItem("Normal");
    cmb1.setBounds(100,50,100,20);
    JComboBox cmb2 = new JComboBox();
    cmb2.addItem("Disabled");
    cmb2.setBounds(100,100,100,20);
    cmb2.setEnabled(false);
    cmb2.setForeground(Color.BLACK);
    JTextField tf = (JTextField)cmb2.getEditor().getEditorComponent();
    tf.setForeground(Color.BLACK);
    cp.add(cmb1);
    cp.add(cmb2);
    setVisible(true);
    cp.requestFocusInWindow();
  public static void main(String arg[]) {
    java.awt.EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
      public void run() {
//     UIManager.put("ComboBox.disabledForeground", new ColorUIResource(0,0,0));
     new TextColor();
}

Answer 1

Thanks from me too, camickr, it's always a good feeling to learn and understand something new.
When I extended MetalComboBoxUI, the borders and the button were back to normal, but the JComboBox background remained dark. After some trial and error, this is the solution I've come up with:
MyComboBoxUI.javapackage joerg22;
import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.Component;
import java.awt.Graphics;
import java.awt.Rectangle;
import javax.swing.JComboBox;
import javax.swing.ListCellRenderer;
import javax.swing.plaf.metal.MetalComboBoxUI;
public class MyComboBoxUI extends MetalComboBoxUI {
    public void paintCurrentValue (Graphics g,
            Rectangle bounds,boolean hasFocus) {
        super.paintCurrentValue (g, bounds, hasFocus);
        ListCellRenderer renderer = comboBox.getRenderer ();
        Component c;
        c = renderer.getListCellRendererComponent ( listBox,
                comboBox.getSelectedItem (),
                -1,
                true,
                false );
        c.setForeground (Color.BLACK);
        // Uncomment the next line for dark b/g when disabled
        //if (comboBox.isEnabled ())
            c.setBackground (comboBox.getBackground ());
        currentValuePane.paintComponent (g, c,
                comboBox, bounds.x, bounds.y,
                bounds.width, bounds.height); //, shouldValidate);
    public void paintCurrentValueBackground (Graphics g,
            Rectangle bounds,boolean hasFocus) {
        super.paintCurrentValueBackground (g, bounds, hasFocus);
        Color t = g.getColor ();
        // Uncomment the next line for dark b/g when disabled
        //if ( comboBox.isEnabled () )
            g.setColor (comboBox.getBackground ());
            g.fillRect (bounds.x + 1, bounds.y + 1,
                    bounds.width - 2, bounds.height - 2);
        g.setColor (t);
}TestUI.javapackage joerg22;
import java.awt.Container;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JComboBox;
import javax.swing.WindowConstants;
public class TestUI extends javax.swing.JFrame {
    public TestUI () {
        setSize (200,150);
        setDefaultCloseOperation (WindowConstants.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        Container cp= getContentPane ();
        cp.setLayout (null);
        final JComboBox cmb1 = new JComboBox ();
        cmb1.addItem ("Normal");
        cmb1.setBounds (50,25,100,20);
        final JComboBox cmb2 = new JComboBox ();
        cmb2.addItem ("Custom");
        cmb2.setBounds (50,50,100,20);
        cmb2.setEnabled (false);
        cmb2.setUI (new MyComboBoxUI ());
        final JButton btn1 = new JButton ("Toggle");
        btn1.addActionListener (new ActionListener () {
            public void actionPerformed (ActionEvent e) {
                cmb1.setEnabled (!cmb1.isEnabled ());
                cmb2.setEnabled (!cmb1.isEnabled ());
        btn1.setBounds (50, 75, 100, 20);
        cp.add (cmb1);
        cp.add (cmb2);
        cp.add (btn1);
        setVisible (true);
        cp.requestFocusInWindow ();
    public static void main (String arg[]) {
        java.awt.EventQueue.invokeLater (new Runnable () {
            public void run () {
                new TestUI ();
}This can probably be improved further, but I'm outta here... shall check back later.
Darryl
Edited by: Darryl.Burke -- to remove some really stupid redundancies in the code I'd just posted.