JTabbedPane with one close button for all tabs

Question

Hello,
there have several solutions been posted for JTabbedPane subclasses that provide tabs with icons working as close buttons on each tab. I think this is not user friendly because the user can hit the close button accidentally when selecting a tab. And a "really close?" dialog is clumsy.
Therefore I prefer the Netscape browser style: There's only one close button rightmost of the tabs that closes the selected tab. But I don't have an idea how to achieve this.
Does anyone have a solution or an idea? Thanks in advance for help.

Answer 1

This solution has been posted several times and is not what I wanted. But I rewrote the thing so that
- the close buttons are on the right hand side of each tab so that it is conformant with Eclipse style, and
- the close buttons work only with a left click (see code below).
I just wonder how I can move the text a little bit to the left so that the appearence is a bit more balanced. Can someone help, please?
import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.FontMetrics;
import java.awt.Graphics;
import java.awt.Rectangle;
import java.awt.event.MouseEvent;
import java.awt.event.MouseListener;
import javax.swing.plaf.basic.BasicTabbedPaneUI;
class TabbedPaneCloseButtonUI extends BasicTabbedPaneUI {
    public TabbedPaneCloseButtonUI() {
        super();
    protected void paintTab(
        Graphics g,
        int tabPlacement,
        Rectangle[] rects,
        int tabIndex,
        Rectangle iconRect,
        Rectangle textRect) {
        super.paintTab(g, tabPlacement, rects, tabIndex, iconRect, textRect);
        Rectangle rect = rects[tabIndex];
        g.setColor(Color.black);
        g.drawRect(rect.x + rect.width -19, rect.y + 4, 13, 12);
        g.drawLine(
            rect.x + rect.width -16,
            rect.y + 7,
            rect.x + rect.width -10,
            rect.y + 13);
        g.drawLine(
            rect.x + rect.width -10,
            rect.y + 7,
            rect.x + rect.width -16,
            rect.y + 13);
        g.drawLine(
            rect.x + rect.width -15,
            rect.y + 7,
            rect.x + rect.width -9,
            rect.y + 13);
        g.drawLine(
            rect.x + rect.width -9,
            rect.y + 7,
            rect.x + rect.width -15,
            rect.y + 13);
    protected int calculateTabWidth(
        int tabPlacement,
        int tabIndex,
        FontMetrics metrics) {
        return super.calculateTabWidth(tabPlacement, tabIndex, metrics) + 24;
    protected MouseListener createMouseListener() {
        return new MyMouseHandler();
    class MyMouseHandler extends MouseHandler {
        public MyMouseHandler() {
            super();
        public void mouseReleased(MouseEvent e) {
            int x = e.getX();
            int y = e.getY();
            int tabIndex = -1;
            int tabCount = tabPane.getTabCount();
            for (int i = 0; i < tabCount; i++) {
                if (rects.contains(x, y)) {
tabIndex = i;
break;
     if (tabIndex >= 0 && ! e.isPopupTrigger()) {
Rectangle tabRect = rects[tabIndex];
y = y - tabRect.y;
if ((x >= tabRect.x + tabRect.width - 18)
&& (x <= tabRect.x + tabRect.width - 8)
&& (y >= 5)
&& (y <= 15)) {
tabPane.remove(tabIndex);
import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import javax.swing.ImageIcon;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JTabbedPane;
public class TabbedPaneWithCloseButtons {
JFrame frame;
JTabbedPane tabPane;
public TabbedPaneWithCloseButtons() throws Exception {
frame=new JFrame();
frame.getContentPane().setLayout(new BorderLayout());
tabPane=new JTabbedPane();
tabPane.addTab("test1xxxxxxxxxxxxxx", new JLabel("1"));
tabPane.addTab("test2xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx", new ImageIcon("images/icon.gif"), new JLabel("2"));
tabPane.addTab("test3xxxxxxxx", new JLabel("3"));
tabPane.setUI(new TabbedPaneCloseButtonUI());
frame.getContentPane().add(tabPane);
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
frame.setSize(200,200);
frame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
frame.setVisible(true);
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
TabbedPaneWithCloseButtons test=new TabbedPaneWithCloseButtons();