JTabbedPane selected tab size

Question

Hello everybody;
I've created a JTabbedPane with JLabel on each tab and i want that the selected one size be larger than the other tabs.
The problem is that if I increase the size of the selected tab, all the others (inselected tabs) do so (they take the same size as the selected one) which is normal.
My need is to change this default behavior in order to fix the inselected tab size and increase the selected one to appear bigger
Thank you for your help

Answer 1

Hello,
- JDK 6
- MetalLookAndFeel
- JTabbedPane#getTabPlacement()==TOP
- Selected tab "width" only grow
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import javax.swing.*;
public class SelectedTabSizeTest{
  private static void addTab(JTabbedPane t, String title, Component c) {
    t.addTab(title, c);
    JLabel label = new JLabel(title, SwingConstants.CENTER);
    t.setTabComponentAt(t.getTabCount()-1, label);
  public JComponent makeUI() {
    JTabbedPane t = new JTabbedPane() {
      private void initTabWidth() {
        int tabCount  = getTabCount();
        if(tabCount==0) return;
        int bigger   = 50;
        int tabWidth = 30;
        int si = getSelectedIndex();
        for(int i=0;i<tabCount;i++) {
          JLabel l = (JLabel)getTabComponentAt(i);
          if(l==null) continue;
          int w = tabWidth+(si==i?bigger:0);
          int h = l.getPreferredSize().height;
          l.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(w, h));
      @Override public synchronized void repaint() {
        initTabWidth();
        super.repaint();
    t.setTabLayoutPolicy(JTabbedPane.SCROLL_TAB_LAYOUT);
    addTab(t, "JTree",      new JScrollPane(new JTree()));
    addTab(t, "JTextArea",  new JScrollPane(new JTextArea("aaaa")));
    addTab(t, "Preference", new JScrollPane(new JTree()));
    addTab(t, "Help",       new JScrollPane(new JTextArea("bbbbbb")));
    t.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(320, 200));
    return t;
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
      public void run() { createAndShowGUI(); }
  public static void createAndShowGUI() {
    JFrame f = new JFrame();
    f.setDefaultCloseOperation(WindowConstants.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
    f.getContentPane().add(new SelectedTabSizeTest().makeUI());
    f.pack();
    f.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
    f.setVisible(true);
}