Effective format for dates in a JFormattedTextField

Question

Hello!
How can I configure a JFormattedTextField to accept dates while showing the mask for dates? I mean, the first time, when the field is empty, it shows only the mask: __/__/___. When the user edit the field it automatically skips the literal characters, going to the place of the numbers. I don't want to force the user to type the date separator characters. I don't want to do just something like this:
DateFormat format =  new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy/MM/dd");
DateFormatter df = new DateFormatter(format);
JFormattedTextField ftf1 = new  JFormattedTextField(df);
ftf1.setValue(new Date());This code doesn't really adds the '/' as a mask.
Thank you.
Marcos

Answer 1

Like a mentioned before there is are data pickers out
there that make is one line for the programmer and
even easier for the user. (Who want to type in a
date).I don't want to user thirdy party components just to handle dates.
Basic things should be simple. Why?Because we do them all the time. The Java language is simple. I'm just complaining about the Swing API.
In programming, I have found that instead that things
that should be simple normally aren't.
I agree with you, but a component that just accept dates with a mask for dates is a simple thing today and always will be. Why don't provide an easy way for you to accomplish this?
Everyday things should be simple.
Why this API is so taugh? I don't know what taugh means.
I mean hard to use.
It s a pain to program in Swing, it even hurts. Have you ever tried AWT?,
We loose a big time searching for ways to do simplethings.
Sorry to here, that, but it sounds like a personal
problem. Use, the API, the tutorials, and pratice
practice pratice.
I think that Swing, even with its problems, is the right visual api to use. I'm just saying that it makes you write lots of code to things that could be done with less code.
I think you will find that Swing's inabitlity to be
simple allows it to be very flexiable.
I know, its flexible, but most of the time we don't need the flexibility that it offers. Most of the time we are doing basic things and should use its flexibility only when needed.