Distinguishing user selections from programmatic selections in JList

Question

I have two jlists., and registered a subclass of ListSelectionListener on each list. When the user selects a record in the first list part of of the code I have written sets a selection on the second list which is correct, but then this triggers the listener on the second list to receive an event, and run its listener code which is not what I want.
I want to be able to identify a list selection caused by the user selecting a record in the list rather than the a programmatic selection, so that i can ignore programmatic selections.
Checking event.getSource() is no good as it always just returns the JList itself regardless of whether it has been done programtaically or by a user.
I tried checking list.isFocusOwner() , figuring that only lists that had been user selected would be focus owner. This works for Windows but on MacOS, it doesnt work the frst time you select something from the list after moving from another component (it does work after that).
How do i do this, thanks Paul

Answer 1

an alternative is to set a flag
boolean fromList1Listener = false;//class field scope
list1Listener
  fromList1Listener = true;
  change list2 selection
  fromList1Listener = false;
list2Listener
  if(fromList1Listener == false)
    normal code goes here
}