JTextArea artifacts when selecting/deselecting text

Question

I just bumped up against a font rendering issue with JTextArea. I have no doubt that it's a bug, but does anyone know of a workaround?
Run the program below and select/deselect text by double-clicking words. The text is painted in a different location when selected and deselected. Try selecting by dragging the mouse or pressing shift and left/right arrow keys -- same problem, but the actual pixel location of the artifacts sometimes differs depending on the selection start and end, and the way the text was selected (keyboard/mouse drag/double click).
Now try selecting the last word ("dog") by double clicking.import java.awt.Font;
import java.awt.font.TextAttribute;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;
import javax.swing.*;
public class TextAreaProblem {
  public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
    SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
      @Override
      public void run() {
        new TextAreaProblem().makeUI();
  public void makeUI() {
    Map<TextAttribute, Object> attributes = new HashMap<TextAttribute, Object>();
    attributes.put(TextAttribute.FAMILY, "Arial");
    attributes.put(TextAttribute.SIZE, 36.0);
    attributes.put(TextAttribute.POSTURE, TextAttribute.POSTURE_OBLIQUE);
    attributes.put(TextAttribute.TRACKING, TextAttribute.TRACKING_LOOSE);
    Font font = Font.getFont(attributes);
    font = font.deriveFont(attributes);
    final JTextArea textArea = new JTextArea("The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.");
    textArea.setFont(font);
    textArea.setLineWrap(true);
    textArea.setWrapStyleWord(true);
    JFrame frame = new JFrame();
    frame.add(new JScrollPane(textArea));
    frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
    frame.setSize(850, 200);
    frame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
    frame.setVisible(true);
Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7600]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.
C:\Users\Darryl>java -version
java version "1.6.0_17"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_17-b04)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 14.3-b01, mixed mode, sharing)Any tips for a workaround will be much appreciated.
Thanks, Darryl

Answer 1

The fix using System.setProperty worked 100% for all font and attribute combinations I tried -- thanks again.
2) Does it work to set the property after the GUI is already created and shown? (shall test that myself in a few hours, but would be nice to know earlier :)No. However, you may set this property as a component client property (on the JTextComponent), but before that component is made visible.This didn't work for me. I tried both putClientProperty and getDocument().putProperty, as suggested in the other thread. What did I miss?import java.awt.Font;
import java.awt.font.TextAttribute;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;
import javax.swing.*;
public class TextAreaProblem {
  public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
    //System.setProperty("i18n", Boolean.TRUE.toString());
    SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
      @Override
      public void run() {
        new TextAreaProblem().makeUI();
  public void makeUI() {
    Map<TextAttribute, Object> attributes = new HashMap<TextAttribute, Object>();
    attributes.put(TextAttribute.FAMILY, "Arial");
    attributes.put(TextAttribute.SIZE, 36.0);
    attributes.put(TextAttribute.TRACKING, TextAttribute.TRACKING_LOOSE);
    attributes.put(TextAttribute.UNDERLINE, TextAttribute.UNDERLINE_ON);
    attributes.put(TextAttribute.STRIKETHROUGH, TextAttribute.STRIKETHROUGH_ON);
    Font font = Font.getFont(attributes);
    font = font.deriveFont(attributes);
    final JTextArea textArea = new JTextArea("The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.");
    textArea.setFont(font);
    textArea.setLineWrap(true);
    textArea.setWrapStyleWord(true);
    // tried either or both -- didn't help
    textArea.getDocument().putProperty("i18n", Boolean.TRUE.toString());
    textArea.putClientProperty("i18n", Boolean.TRUE.toString());
    JFrame frame = new JFrame();
    frame.add(new JScrollPane(textArea));
    frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
    frame.setSize(850, 200);
    frame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
    frame.setVisible(true);
}Darryl
edit Setting this property seems to remove the ability to render underlined and strikethrough attributes. Changed the code above to add these. When "i18n" is set, they are ignored.
edit2 GlyphPainter2 also doesn't appear to support foreground/background colors and swap_colors. It's beginning to look like whoever wrote that class solved a single problem of cumulative integer math error but introduced several others. Or maybe just didn't reimplement the features that weren't inherited..
Edited by: DarrylBurke on Sep 8, 2010 5:13 AM