JTree Selection Behavior with Custom TreeCellEditor

Question

I've recently had the need to build a custom TreeCellEditor with a JTree that allows single path selection. I've toyed around with it but don't understand it. When a node is clicked, the editor takes over rendering/handling the cell, and a TreeSelectionEvent is fired from the tree, but the isSelected boolean value passed to the TreeCellEditor is initially false. Then on a second click of the same path in the tree, no TreeSelectionEvent is fired, but the isSelected boolean value is true. It's as if the tree selection is occuring after the editor renders the cell. I would like the cell to appear selected on the first click. Can anyone shed some light on why this is happening and how I can fix it?
I included some code to demonstrate the problem below (though no actual editing takes place; the test code is only to demonstrate how the cells only appear selected with a yellow background after the second click of the same cell; note also that the valueChanged only executes on the first click). This test was run on Windows with Java 1.5.
public class TestTreeCellEditor extends JLabel implements TreeCellEditor {
     private String st;
     public TestTreeCellEditor() {
          setOpaque(true);
     public Component getTreeCellEditorComponent(JTree tree, Object value,
               boolean isSelected, boolean expanded, boolean leaf, int row) {
          this.st = value.toString();
          setBackground(isSelected? Color.YELLOW : Color.WHITE);
          setText(st);
          return this;
     public void addCellEditorListener(CellEditorListener l) {
          // not important for test
     public void cancelCellEditing() {
          this.st = null;
     public Object getCellEditorValue() {
          return st;
     public boolean isCellEditable(EventObject anEvent) {
          return true;
     public void removeCellEditorListener(CellEditorListener l) {
          // not important for test
     public boolean shouldSelectCell(EventObject anEvent) {
          return true;
     public boolean stopCellEditing() {
          return true;
public class TestTreeCellEditorFrame extends JFrame implements TreeSelectionListener {
     public static void main(String[] args) {
          SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
               public void run() {
                    launchGUI();
     private static void launchGUI() {
          TestTreeCellEditorFrame frame = new TestTreeCellEditorFrame();
          JPanel treePanel = new JPanel();
          DefaultMutableTreeNode rootNode = new DefaultMutableTreeNode("Root node");
          DefaultMutableTreeNode childNode = new DefaultMutableTreeNode("Child 1");
          rootNode.add(childNode);
          childNode = new DefaultMutableTreeNode("Child 2");
          rootNode.add(childNode);
          JTree testTree = new JTree(rootNode);
          testTree.addTreeSelectionListener(frame);
          testTree.setCellEditor(new TestTreeCellEditor());
          testTree.setEditable(true);
          testTree.getSelectionModel().setSelectionMode(TreeSelectionModel.SINGLE_TREE_SELECTION);
          treePanel.add(testTree);
          frame.setContentPane(treePanel);
          frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
          frame.setSize(600,400);
          frame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
          frame.setVisible(true);
     public void valueChanged(TreeSelectionEvent event) {
          TreePath path = event.getNewLeadSelectionPath();
          if (path != null) {
               DefaultMutableTreeNode node = (DefaultMutableTreeNode) path.getLastPathComponent();
               System.out.println("TreeSelectionEvent on " + node.getUserObject().toString());
}

Answer 1

Since my last post, I decided that I do want to be able to edit a cell that is not selected. In particular, when using a tree with checkboxes. What I'm doing for the time being, which works well enough, is to highlight the cell based on the isSelected value in combination with calling tree.stopEditing() in a TreeSelectionListener valueChanged method. This is somewhat of a hack solution, and has the side effect of a cell not appearing selected until the mouseReleased event. I'm still looking for a better solution, but for now it works well enough.