How to start TreeCellEditor apart from default behaviors

Question

Hi,
I'm trying to find the way to start TreeCellEditor apart from default behaviors which are triple mouse click, click-pause-click and F2 (in Windows).
The only way I found for starting editor in tree is JTree.startEditingAtPath. However the problem is I designed to separate the action(model) from the tree (view). So In my action class, it knows only TreeModel but not JTree.
How could I set my action class to tell the JTree to start editor? Is there any approach to do so but do not break my design?
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

I had to do a custom JTree to get my editor to work the way you wanted.
I needed mine to allow a double mouse click. Then when in edit mode have the text default to a 'select all'.
All of the 'Rollup' items are custom objects but this should give you an idea of what to do.
class CustomUI extends BasicTreeUI
    protected boolean startEditing(TreePath path, MouseEvent event) {
        // default to standard behavior
        boolean result = super.startEditing(path, event);
        // start editing this node?
        if (result) {
            // start peeling the object to get a handle to the editor
            RollupTree rollupTree = (RollupTree) event.getSource();
            RollupTreeEditor editor = (RollupTreeEditor) rollupTree.getCellEditor();
            // set Icon if node a trader
            RollupNode node = (RollupNode) rollupTree.getSelectionPath().getLastPathComponent();
            if (node.isTrader()) {
                editor.setEditorIcon(IconLoader.getIcon("Trader.png"));
            JTextField textField = editor.getEditor();
            // they want to default so that the edit text
            // is in selected mode when they first start to edit the field
            textField.selectAll();
        return result;
    }I also did a custom default editor which looks like:
class RollupTreeEditor extends DefaultTreeCellEditor
    public RollupTreeEditor(final JTree tree, final RollupTreeCellRenderer renderer) {
        super(tree, renderer);
     * Allow people to toggle the icon when in edit mode
     * @param editor Icon
    public void setEditorIcon(Icon editor) {
        editingIcon = editor;
     * If the <code>realEditor</code> returns true to this
     * message, <code>prepareForEditing</code>
     * is messaged and true is returned.
     * @param event EventObject
     * @return boolean
    public boolean isCellEditable(EventObject event) {
        if (event instanceof MouseEvent) {
            // double click for edit
            if (((MouseEvent) event).getClickCount() == 2) {
                return true;
        return false;
    public DefaultTextField getEditor() {
        return (DefaultTextField)this.editingComponent;
}Then in my custom JTree I set these up like...
        // turn on tooltips
        ToolTipManager.sharedInstance().registerComponent(this);
        // used by two setters so create reference
        RollupTreeCellRenderer renderer = new RollupTreeCellRenderer();
        // customizing the icons for the tree
        // setting the folder icons
        // renderer.setOpenIcon(IconLoader.getIcon("Open.gif"));
        // renderer.setClosedIcon(IconLoader.getIcon("Folder.gif"));
        renderer.setLeafIcon(null); // drop the icon
        // add renderer to highlight Inventory nodes with Red or Blue text
        setCellRenderer(renderer);
        // set the editor
        setCellEditor(new RollupTreeEditor(this, renderer));
        // set UI to over ride editing event method
        setUI(new CustomUI());A nice touch is to add a mouse listener so if the user clicks out of the editor it cancels the edit mode. So here is the simple call:
        tree.addMouseListener(new MouseAdapter()
            public void mouseClicked(MouseEvent e) {
                // get handle to tree
                RollupTree tree = (RollupTree) e.getSource();
                // exit editor if in edit mode
                tree.getCellEditor().stopCellEditing();
            public void mouseReleased(MouseEvent e) {
                if (e.isPopupTrigger()) {
                    menu.show(e.getComponent(), e.getX(), e.getY());
        });Does this help answer your question?