Images and multiple lines in JTree

Question

I have a JTree and would like to display more details about certain nodes than can be seen in a single line, and perhaps images in some cases. What I was hoping I could do was instantiate DefaultMutableTreeNode with a JPanel that looked the way I wanted, but it turns out DefaultMutableTreeNode just uses the toString method of the object as the string it displays. Is there any way to do this? Here's an example of what I want (if images will display here.. if not, here's the link: http://www.enginuity.org/files/jtree_labels_157.gif )

Answer 1

DefaultMutableTreeNode is only a model class, it does not know or care how the data is displayed (you could use DefaultMutableTreeNode without ever displaying the data in a JTree). What you need is a TreeCellRenderer (although I'm not sure you can set row height with that). This allows you to instruct the JTree to query you for a component to display for each cell of the tree. This component might be a JPanel with whatever you want in it.
You should check this section of the JAVA Tutorial for more details: http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/uiswing/components/tree.html
If what you need is to display a multiple columns for each node (a so-called TreeTable) then the matter is more complicated. But I found an article from Sun that describes how to write such a thing (I don't have the link handy).
Message was edited by:
A.Cristescu