MaskFormatter with JSpinner and DateEditor?

Question

Hi,
I'm trying to apply a MaskFormatter to the DateEditor on a JSpinner. We want the ability to both manually edit the fields by hand AND/OR click the up/down arrows.
The one gotcha is that when manually entering the values, we want to set a mask on the field so the user doesn't have to type in the ":" when separating the time fields. Right now, when they can delete all the text in the spinner textfield.
I've dug through the source code of JSpinner and it appears that I should be able to get the editors JFormattedTextField and set the MaskFormatter as part of the AbstractFormatFactory. But all I end up with is a blank JSpinner and I can't type in the textfield.
Below is my code:
import java.awt.event.WindowAdapter;
import java.awt.event.WindowEvent;
import java.util.Calendar;
import java.util.Date;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.JSpinner;
import javax.swing.SpinnerDateModel;
import javax.swing.SpinnerModel;
import javax.swing.text.DefaultFormatterFactory;
import javax.swing.text.MaskFormatter;
public class MaskedFieldTest {
     public static void main(String[] args) {
          final JFrame f = new JFrame("Textfield demo");
          f.setDefaultCloseOperation(f.DISPOSE_ON_CLOSE);
          f.addWindowListener(new WindowAdapter() {
               public void windowClosed(WindowEvent e) {
                    System.exit(0);
          f.setSize(250, 70);
          try {
               // Create a spinner
               JSpinner spinner = new JSpinner();
               // Set up a dummy calendar for the model
               Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance();
               Date initDate = calendar.getTime();
               calendar.add(Calendar.YEAR, -100);
               Date earliestDate = calendar.getTime();
               calendar.add(Calendar.YEAR, 200);
               Date latestDate = calendar.getTime();
               // Set the model
               SpinnerModel dateModel = new SpinnerDateModel(initDate, earliestDate, latestDate, Calendar.YEAR);
               spinner.setModel(dateModel);
               // Create the dateeditor using the time format we want displayed in the spinner
               JSpinner.DateEditor dateEditor = new JSpinner.DateEditor(spinner, "hh:mm:ss a");
               // Create a mask for editing so we don't have to manually add the :
               MaskFormatter fmt = new MaskFormatter("##:##:## UU");
               // Get the factory from the editor and set the maskformatter for the editing portion
               DefaultFormatterFactory form = (DefaultFormatterFactory)dateEditor.getTextField().getFormatterFactory();
               form.setEditFormatter(fmt);
               // Finally, assign the editor to the spinner
               spinner.setEditor(dateEditor);
               // Display the panel
               JPanel panel = new JPanel();
               panel.add(spinner);
               f.getContentPane().add(panel);
               f.setVisible(true);
          } catch (java.text.ParseException e) {
               e.printStackTrace();
}If you run the code, you'll just get an empty JSpinner and you can't do anything in the textfield even though it is enabled.
I'm running JDK.1.4.2_09 on Windows XP SP2
Has anyone used a MaskFormatter with a DateEditor on a JSpinner before?
Thanks,
- Tim

Answer 1

see weebib's post here
http://forum.java.sun.com/thread.jspa?forumID=57&threadID=581804