How to display two "columns" in combobox?

Question

Hi,
I need to display two strings for each row of a combobox. Say string array str1 = {"abc", "aw", "axz12"}, str2 = {"12.1", "33.123", "5.06612"}. Now I want to display them in a combo box as a "table with 2 columns", i.e. when the drop down menu is clicked, it will show something like a table (with or w/o borders)
abc 12.1
aw 33.123
axz12 5.06612
if the first one is selected, it will show "abc 12.1". I could use jcomboboxA.addItem(str1[i] + " " + str2), but it does not show nicely -- not as a table. Is there any way to do it?
Thanks!
Harvey

Answer 1

Thanks for the answer to the first question. Though if I include the list.setFont() method in the getListCellRendererComponent or in the custom UI i've created, I still get monospaced data.
As for the second one about getting long data to display correctly
I already changed the tabstop location from right to left and all data appears fine for most of the elements in the list, but if the text is very long for the second column, the long text values in the 2nd column smash up against the values in the first column. (I wish I could provide a screen print here... a thousand words and all that). Here's what the data looks like in the list:
aa's really really really really really long description
x x's description
y y's description
zz's really really really really long description
I've already resized the popup list so there's plenty of room to show the long text. I'll paste the code here so you can see exactly what I've got. I give the combobox 2 string arrays, one for codes & one for descriptions. combo.getText() needs to give JUST the code. The popup window stuff is mostly cut & paste (probably from camikr's other posting), so I'm not sure if the difficulty is there... I cannot profess to understand each line.
Thanks all, for any input...
public class CustomComboBox extends JComboBox {
    public int _maxdatawidth = 0;
    private int size;
    public CustomComboBox(Object[] codes, Object[] names) {
        size = codes.length;
        int textlength = 0;
        String data [][] = new String[size][2];
        for (int i = 0; i < size; i++) {
            data[0] = (String) codes[i];
data[i][1] = (String) names[i];
if (data[i][1].length() > textlength)
textlength = data[i][1].length();
// create a customized model for getting selected item.
DefaultComboBoxModel model = new DefaultComboBoxModel(data);
this.setModel(model);
setRenderer(new TabListRenderer());
// set the maxwidth for popup size
FontMetrics fm = this.getFontMetrics(this.getFont());
// give 20% buffer to make sure the popup is big enough
_maxdatawidth = Math.round((textlength) * fm.charWidth('W') * 1.20F);
// select the first item by default
// must select the item before setting the UI to show the default.
// ttcp 7/1 trying to select item. >>> NOT working.
this.getModel().setSelectedItem(data[1]);
this.getModel().setSelectedItem(data[0]);
// this.setSelectedItem(data[0]);
// set the UI
setUI(new CustomComboBoxUI(this));
// select the first item by default
// this.setSelectedItem(data[0]);
// this.setSelectedIndex(0);
// this.setSelectedIndex(0);
public Object getSelectedData() {
Object loReturn = null;
loReturn = super.getSelectedItem();
if (loReturn instanceof Object[]) {
Object[] selecteddata = (Object[]) loReturn;
if (selecteddata.length > 0)
loReturn = selecteddata[0];
else {
loReturn = null;
return loReturn;
class TabListRenderer extends JTextPane implements ListCellRenderer {
private static final int TAB_COLUMN = 12;
private Color background = UIManager.getColor("ComboBox.selectionBackground");
private Color foreground = UIManager.getColor("ComboBox.selectionForeground");
// private Font font = UIManager.getFont("List.font");
TabListRenderer() {
setMargin(new Insets(0, 0, 0, 0));
// can't seem to get the font NOT monospaced.
setFont(new Font("Dialog", Font.PLAIN, 11));
FontMetrics fm = getFontMetrics(getFont());
int tabWidth = fm.charWidth('w') * TAB_COLUMN;
TabStop tab = new TabStop(tabWidth, TabStop.ALIGN_RIGHT, TabStop.LEAD_NONE);
TabStop[] tabs = new TabStop[1];
tabs[0] = tab;
TabSet tabSet = new TabSet(tabs);
SimpleAttributeSet attributes = new SimpleAttributeSet();
StyleConstants.setTabSet(attributes, tabSet);
getStyledDocument().setParagraphAttributes(0, 0, attributes, true);
setPreferredSize(new Dimension(tabWidth, fm.getHeight()));
public Component getListCellRendererComponent(
JList list, Object value, int index, boolean isSelected, boolean cellHasFocus) {
String leftData = ((String[]) value)[0];
String rightData = ((String[]) value)[1];
setText(leftData + "\t" + rightData);
setBackground(isSelected ? background : null);
setForeground(isSelected ? foreground : null);
return this;
class CustomComboBoxUI extends MetalComboBoxUI {
final CustomComboBox _box;
public CustomComboBoxUI(final CustomComboBox pobox) {
super();
_box = pobox;
protected ComboPopup createPopup() {
BasicComboPopup popup = new BasicComboPopup(comboBox) {
public void show() {
Dimension popupSize = _box.getSize();
popupSize.setSize(_box._maxdatawidth, getPopupHeightForRowCount(_box.getMaximumRowCount()));
Rectangle popupBounds = computePopupBounds(_box.getX(), comboBox.getBounds().height, popupSize.width, popupSize.height);
scroller.setMaximumSize(popupBounds.getSize());
scroller.setPreferredSize(popupBounds.getSize());
scroller.setMinimumSize(popupBounds.getSize());
list.invalidate();
int selectedIndex = comboBox.getSelectedIndex();
if (selectedIndex == -1) {
list.clearSelection();
} else {
list.setSelectedIndex(selectedIndex);
list.ensureIndexIsVisible(list.getSelectedIndex());
setLightWeightPopupEnabled(comboBox.isLightWeightPopupEnabled());
show(comboBox, popupBounds.x, popupBounds.y);
popup.getAccessibleContext().setAccessibleParent(comboBox);
return popup;