Is it possible to format the appearance of JList components?

Question

Hi!
I've looked through the tutorial and browsed through previous messages, but I can't seem to find an answer to my question. Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.
The situation: I have a JList in which I want to display a list of objects. I use a DefaultListModel, create a JList and then add objects to the DefaultListModel as I please, everything works great.
The problem: The objects that I'm adding are not strings. They are objects that contain a number of instance variables and are instances of class 'MessageObject.' Thus, when the program is run, the objects in the list have names like: "MessageObject@53c375" or "MessageObject@453807", which is undesirable.
The question: Is there a way to make the list contain OBJECTS but display STRINGS (like, a string contained within the object or whatever) ?
Any help is greatly appreciated! Sorry if the answer is trivial, it's just getting a bit late... Thank you in advance.
Vlad

Answer 1

Lists, like most Swing components, have a Model (containing the data) and a View (the graphical representation of the model).
The view requires instruction on how to display the objects contained within the model. The default method of displaying objects is invoking the toString() method which exists for every object. In most cases, this will display 'nonsensical' internal information, as you are currently getting. However, you can implement the toString() method in your objects, to return a custom String, thereby displaying the object any way you like.
For a more advanced display technique, you can look into ListCellRenderer, custom implementations of which can display objects in any graphical sense as you like.
The bottom line is, in you MessageObject class definition, supply a method:public String toString() { ... }