JList selection focus problem

Question

Hi,
I'm trying to write a help viewer similar to a MS one. I would like to be able to type characters into a textfield,and as they are typed, the matching JList item is selected.
This works, but the selected item in the JList is only painted as selected when it gains focus. Is there any way to make a JList item paint as if it is selected and has focus, even though another component actually has the focus?
Thanks.

Answer 1

Make a custom cellrenderer extending the DefaulListCellRenderer and let it do smething like the code below. The borders on cellHasFocus are my custom variants, but I guess it's easy to find the default ones if you like.
Have a look in the tutorial about custom renderers and in the performande book at :
http://java.sun.com/docs/books/performance/
or more precisly at:
http://java.sun.com/docs/books/performance/1st_edition/html/JPSwingModels.fm.html#1001816
It's easy to make some errors in renderers... Never create any new objects and other things and you're halfway there.
  public Component getListCellRendererComponent(JList list, Object value,
       int index, boolean isSelected, boolean cellHasFocus)
          if (isSelected)
             this.setBackground(list.getSelectionBackground());
             this.setForeground(list.getSelectionForeground());
          else
             this.setBackground(list.getBackground());
             this.setForeground(list.getForeground());
          if (cellHasFocus)
             this.setBorder(hasFocusBorder);
          else
             this.setBorder(hasNotFocusBorder);
          return this;
   }