Focus management for JTable (J2SE 1.4)

Question

hi,
I am using J2SE 1.4 currently. Java 1.4 defines JTables as FocusCycleRoots. That is, when they are tabbed into, focus becomes "trapped" within them, so the Tab key in a JTable causes the focus to traverse to the next cell. But I want give the focus to the next component (e.g JButton, JTextField, etc.), not one of its cells.
Anybody knows how solve this problem? Thanks a lot.

Answer 1

isManagingFocus is deprecated in 1.4 so it's probably best not to use that.
Also, JTable isn't actually a focus cycle root. It's simply operating on the key bindings that it has by default. That is, TAB moves the selection from cell to cell and Ctrl-TAB moves to the next focusable component (after the JTable).
I think the recommended way to approach it is to set the focus traversal keys something like this
// get your table from somewhere
JTable table = new JTable();
// use java.awt.AWTKeyStroke to set up the appropriate focus
// traversal keys
AWTKeyStroke tab = AWTKeyStroke.getAWTKeyStroke(KeyEvent.VK_TAB, 0);
AWTKeyStroke shiftTab = AWTKeyStroke.getAWTKeyStroke(KeyEvent.VK_TAB, KeyEvent.SHIFT_DOWN_MASK);
AWTKeyStroke ctrlTab = AWTKeyStroke.getAWTKeyStroke(KeyEvent.VK_TAB, KeyEvent.CTRL_DOWN_MASK);
AWTKeyStroke ctrlShiftTab = AWTKeyStroke.getAWTKeyStroke(KeyEvent.VK_TAB, KeyEvent.CTRL_DOWN_MASK | KeyEvent.SHIFT_DOWN_MASK);
// create a java.util.Set for forwards and backwards focus traversal
// keys. The actual concrete Set you use probably doesn't matter.
// I've used a java.util.HashSet
HashSet forwardKeys = new HashSet();
HashSet backwardKeys = new HashSet();
// add the appropriate keys to the appropriate sets
forwardKeys.add(tab);
forwardKeys.add(ctrlTab);
backwardKeys.add(shiftTab);
backwardKeys.add(ctrlShiftTab);
// set the focus traversal keys on the table.
table.setFocusTraversalKeys(KeyboardFocusManager.FORWARD_TRAVERSAL_KEYS, forwardKeys);
table.setFocusTraversalKeys(KeyboardFocusManager.BACKWARD_TRAVERSAL_KEYS, backwardKeys);