JComboBox with Custon Renderer Problem

Question

Hi, I am using a JComboBox with a custom ListCellRenderer that changes the colors of the strings on the list depending on some circunstances. The problem is that the changes only work on the list, but when one item is finally selected, and the list is no longer visible, the selected item has the default format (no colors)
Thanks in advance

Answer 1

I am not exactly sure what you mean, but here is something I wrote that sounds similar. It allows items in the dropdown list to be highlighted (text in red). The highlighted state is maintained when the dropdown list disappears, though in this implementation a selected item has highlighting turned off (the idea was that the items are things the user needed to see, once the user had selected a item, it no longer needed to be highlighted).
For this to work all the items in your list must implement HighlightingComboBox.Highlightable.
import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.awt.*;
* An extension to JComboBox that allows items to be "highlighted"
* (if they implement the HighlightingComboBox.Highlightable interface).
* Highlighted items are shown in red. Highlighting is turned off when
* the item is first selected. Items not impleneting that interface are
* displayed normally. The drop-down list is rendered the same
* regardless of the font property of the components, it is therefore
* possible to set that property to, say, a huge, fancy font without the
* drop-down panel being affected.
public class HighlightingComboBox extends JComboBox
                                  implements ActionListener {
    public HighlightingComboBox() {
        super();
        addActionListener(this);
        setRenderer(new FancyRenderer());
    public HighlightingComboBox(Object[] os) {
        super(os);
        this.addActionListener(this);
        setRenderer(new FancyRenderer());
    public void actionPerformed(java.awt.event.ActionEvent ae) {
        if (getSelectedItem() instanceof Highlightable)
            ((Highlightable)getSelectedItem()).setHighlighted(false);
    private static class FancyRenderer extends JLabel
                                       implements ListCellRenderer {
        public java.awt.Component getListCellRendererComponent(
                javax.swing.JList list,
                Object value,
                int index,
                boolean isSelected,
                boolean cellHasFocus) {
            setText(value.toString());
            if ((value instanceof Highlightable)
                       && (((Highlightable)value).isHighlighted())) {
                setForeground(Color.red);
            } else {
                setForeground(Color.black);
            setBackground(isSelected ? Color.yellow : Color.white);
            setForeground(Color.black);
            return this;
     * Objects that implement this interface can be
     * highlighted on a HighlightingComboBox.
    public interface Highlightable {
        public boolean isHighlighted();
        public void setHighlighted(boolean flag);
}