How to repaint a portion of a component?

Question

I am working with JLayeredPane and several overlapping components which I draw a selection rectangle around when the user clicks on a component to indicate that it is "selected". If the user selects another component I need to wipe out the selection rectangle on the previously selected component. I'm not sure what the best approach for this is.
If the initially selected component was underneath (in a lower layer than) another component, I can't simply repaint it without repainting all of the components that are above it. This seems like it could be too much painting just to remove a selection box. Can someone recommend a good approach for this problem?
Thanks,
Jonathan

Answer 1

Thanks for the response. The components should be on separate layers (added via JLayeredPane.add(JComponent) ) so if the painter takes the layers into account, then there must be something else wrong. Here's a quick demo program of what I'm doing:
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.MouseEvent;
import javax.swing.*;
import javax.swing.event.MouseInputAdapter;
public class LayerDemo {
     private ControlMouseInputAdapter controlMouseInputAdapter = new ControlMouseInputAdapter();
private static void createAndShowGUI() {
     LayerDemo layerDemo = new LayerDemo();
JFrame mainFrame = new JFrame();
try {
UIManager.setLookAndFeel(UIManager.getSystemLookAndFeelClassName());
} catch (Exception e) {;}
mainFrame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
mainFrame.setSize(400, 400);
JLayeredPane layeredPane = mainFrame.getLayeredPane();
layeredPane.add(layerDemo.createColoredLabel("test1", Color.RED, new Point(20, 20)));
layeredPane.add(layerDemo.createColoredLabel("test2", Color.BLUE, new Point(40, 40)));
mainFrame.setVisible(true);
private JLabel createColoredLabel(String text, Color color,
Point origin) {
JLabel label = new JLabel();
label.addMouseListener(controlMouseInputAdapter);
label.setText(text);
label.setOpaque(true);
label.setBackground(color);
label.setBounds(origin.x, origin.y, 140, 140);
return label;
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
public void run() {createAndShowGUI();}
private class ControlMouseInputAdapter extends MouseInputAdapter {
public void mouseEntered(MouseEvent e) {
JComponent component = (JComponent) e.getSource();
component.setBorder(BorderFactory.createLineBorder(Color.black));
public void mouseExited(MouseEvent e) {
JComponent component = (JComponent) e.getSource();
component.setBorder(null);
}