Popup menus over elements in a JList

Question

Hi,
How would I create a Popup menu when I select an element in a single selection only JList?
Is it possible to have the popup show on any selection event (keyboard, mouse, or even by programatically causing an element to be selected)?
thanks.

Answer 1

I kind of got the behavior I want with doing following, but when I try to use this approach in an Applet, I get an ugly Java Applet Window message:
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import javax.swing.*;
public class MenuTest extends JFrame implements ActionListener{
DefaultListModel lm = new DefaultListModel();
JList list = new JList(lm);
JScrollPane scroll = new JScrollPane(list);
JPanel p = new JPanel(new BorderLayout());
JPopupMenu popup = new JPopupMenu();
JMenuItem menuItem;
public MenuTest(){
     list.setSelectionMode(ListSelectionModel.SINGLE_SELECTION);
     lm.addElement("one");
     lm.addElement("two");
     lm.addElement("three");
     lm.addElement("four");
     getContentPane().add(p, BorderLayout.CENTER);
     p.add(scroll, BorderLayout.CENTER);
     menuItem = new JMenuItem("print to stdout");
     menuItem.addActionListener(this);
     popup.add(menuItem);
     list.addMouseListener(new MouseAdapter(){
          public void mouseReleased(MouseEvent e){
          int index = list.locationToIndex(e.getPoint());
          if (index>-1&&!(list.isSelectionEmpty())){
               popup.show(e.getComponent(), e.getX(), e.getY());
     addWindowListener(new WindowAdapter() {
public void windowClosing(WindowEvent e) {
System.exit(0);
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e){
     System.out.println((String) list.getSelectedValue());
public static void main(String args[]){
     MenuTest window = new MenuTest();
     window.setTitle("MenuTest");
     window.setSize(200, 300);
     window.setVisible(true);
It seems the behavior is different than for frames and in my GNOME desktop manager when I run my applet it opens a new window for the PopupMenu.
If anyone has run into this and has a work around please let me know.
thanks