Is it possible to forbid selection in TextField?

Question

I have a small problem: my text field keeps selecting itself, for example if I alt-tab from and to application.
For my application, text selection is not needed and will not be used - so I want to disallow this annoying behavior. Actually, just setting selection color to transparent or white will work fine.
Is there some way to do this?

Answer 1

just setting selection color to transparent or white will work fine.Having an editable field without being able to see selections in the field does seem kind of strange to me. But anyway, you can do that via css:
textField.setStyle("-fx-highlight-fill: null; -fx-highlight-text-fill: -fx-text-fill;");Create a stylesheet styling .text-input if you want to apply the style to all text input fields.
See the JavaFX css reference guide for answers to all of your css related question: http://docs.oracle.com/javafx/2/api/javafx/scene/doc-files/cssref.html
You can also listen on the selectedTextProperty and clear the selection whenever something is selected.
Sample app:
import javafx.application.Application;
import javafx.beans.value.ChangeListener;
import javafx.beans.value.ObservableValue;
import javafx.scene.Scene;
import javafx.scene.control.TextField;
import javafx.scene.layout.VBox;
import javafx.stage.Stage;
public class TextFieldHighlightFill extends Application {
  public static void main(String[] args) { launch(args); }
  @Override public void start(final Stage stage) throws Exception {
    TextField standardTextField = new TextField("Plain Jane");
    TextField styledTextField = new TextField("Jumping Jackrabbits");
    styledTextField.setStyle("-fx-highlight-fill: null; -fx-highlight-text-fill: -fx-text-fill;");
    final TextField forbiddenTextField = new TextField("Happy hippopotamuses");
    forbiddenTextField.setStyle("-fx-highlight-fill: null; -fx-highlight-text-fill: -fx-text-fill;");
    forbiddenTextField.selectedTextProperty().addListener(new ChangeListener<String>() {
      @Override public void changed(ObservableValue<? extends String> observable, String oldValue, String newValue) {
        if (newValue != null || !newValue.isEmpty()) {
          int caretAt = forbiddenTextField.getCaretPosition();
          forbiddenTextField.selectRange(caretAt, caretAt);
    final VBox layout = new VBox(10);
    layout.getChildren().addAll(standardTextField, styledTextField, forbiddenTextField);
    layout.setStyle("-fx-padding: 10; -fx-background-color: cornsilk;");
    stage.setScene(new Scene(layout));
    stage.show();
}