Resizing ListCellRenderers using JTextArea and word wrap

Question

Hi,
I'm trying to create a ListCellRenderer to draw nice cells for a JList. Each cell has a one line title and a description of variable length. So, I create a custom ListCellRenderer, which consists of a JPanel containing a JLabel for the title and a JTextArea for the description. I set the JTextArea to do wrapping on word boundried and it all almost works.
But, the list cells don't resize to accomodate the variable height of the cells. They show only 1 line for the title and 1 line for the description.
I have seen a few threads relating to this including the article, "Multi-line cells in JTable in JDK 1.4+" in the Java Specialists' Newsletter, which seems to do a similar trick for JTables. But so far nothing I've tried works.
Curiously, using println debugging, my getListCellRenderer method seems to get called for each cell twice while my GUI is being drawn. It looks to me like the TextUI view that draws the JTextArea seems to do the word wrapping after the first set of getListCellRenderer calls. But, it's the first set of calls that seems to establish the layout of the list.
Any help would be appreciated. I've pulled out quite enough hair over this one.
-chris
package bogus;
import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.Component;
import java.awt.Font;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;
import javax.swing.*;
public class CellRendererTest {
     public static void main(String[] args) {
          final CellRendererTest test = new CellRendererTest();
          SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
               public void run() {
                    test.createGui();
     public void createGui() {
          JFrame frame = new JFrame("Testing Bogus ListCellRenderer");
          JList list = new JList(createBogusListItems());
          list.setCellRenderer(new MyListCellRenderer());
          frame.add(list);
          frame.setSize(200, 400);
          frame.setVisible(true);
          frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
     private MyListItem[] createBogusListItems() {
          List<MyListItem> items = new ArrayList<MyListItem>();
          items.add(new MyListItem("First item", "This is a nice short description."));
          items.add(new MyListItem("Another one", "This is a longer description which might take up a couple of lines."));
          items.add(new MyListItem("Next one", "This is a ridiculously long description which is total gibberish." +
                    "Blah blah blabber jabber goo. Blither blather bonk. Oink boggle gaggle ker-plunk."));
          items.add(new MyListItem("No Desc", null));
          items.add(new MyListItem("Last one", "Boink!"));
          return items.toArray(new MyListItem[items.size()]);
     static class MyListCellRenderer extends JPanel implements ListCellRenderer {
          private JLabel title;
          private JTextArea desc;
          // hack to see if this is even possible
          private static int[] rows = {1, 2, 3, 0, 1};
          public MyListCellRenderer() {
               setLayout(new BorderLayout());
               setBorder(BorderFactory.createEmptyBorder(6, 4, 6, 4));
               setOpaque(true);
               title = new JLabel();
               title.setFont(new Font("Arial", Font.ITALIC | Font.BOLD, 11));
               add(title, BorderLayout.NORTH);
               desc = new JTextArea();
               desc.setFont(new Font("Arial", Font.PLAIN, 9));
               desc.setOpaque(false);
               desc.setWrapStyleWord(true);
               desc.setLineWrap(true);
               add(desc, BorderLayout.CENTER);
          public Component getListCellRendererComponent(JList list, Object value,
                    int index, boolean isSelected, boolean cellHasFocus) {
               MyListItem item = (MyListItem)value;
               title.setText(item.title);
               if (item.description != null && item.description.length() > 0) {
                    desc.setText(item.description);
                    desc.setVisible(true);
               else {
                    desc.setVisible(false);
               // uncomment next line to to somewhat simulate the effect I want (hacked using the rows array)
               // desc.setRows(rows[index]);
               if (isSelected) {
                    setBackground(list.getSelectionBackground());
                    setForeground(list.getSelectionForeground());
               else {
                    setBackground(list.getBackground());
                    setForeground(list.getForeground());
               return this;
     static class MyListItem {
          String title;
          String description;
          public MyListItem(String title, String description) {
               this.title = title;
               this.description = description;
}

Answer 1

This seems to work
import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.Component;
import java.awt.Dimension;
import java.awt.Font;
import java.awt.Insets;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;
import javax.swing.*;
import javax.swing.text.View;
public class CellRendererTest {
     int WIDTH = 220;
     public static void main(String[] args) {
          final CellRendererTest test = new CellRendererTest();
          SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
               public void run() {
                    test.createGui();
     public void createGui() {
          JFrame frame = new JFrame("Testing Bogus ListCellRenderer");
          JList list = new JList(createBogusListItems());
          final MyListCellRenderer renderer = new MyListCellRenderer();
          list.setCellRenderer( renderer );
          JScrollPane listScrollPane = new JScrollPane(list);
          frame.add(listScrollPane);
          frame.setSize(WIDTH, 400);
          frame.setVisible(true);
          frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
     private MyListItem[] createBogusListItems() {
          List<MyListItem> items = new ArrayList<MyListItem>();
          items.add(new MyListItem("First item", "This is a nice short description."));
          items.add(new MyListItem("Another one", "This is a longer description which might take up a couple of lines."));
          items.add(new MyListItem("Next one", "This is a ridiculously long description which is total gibberish." +
                    "Blah blah blabber jabber goo. Blither blather bonk. Oink boggle gaggle ker-plunk."));
          items.add(new MyListItem("No Desc", null));
          items.add(new MyListItem("Last one", "Boink!"));
          items.add(new MyListItem("Ooops this one breaks things by being longer than my fixed width", "Blabber babble gibber flipper flop."));
          return items.toArray(new MyListItem[items.size()]);
     static class MyListCellRenderer extends JPanel implements ListCellRenderer {
          public JLabel title;
          public JTextArea desc;
          Color altColor = new Color(0xeeeeee);
          public MyListCellRenderer() {
               setLayout(new BorderLayout());
               setBorder(BorderFactory.createEmptyBorder(6, 4, 6, 4));
               setOpaque(true);
               title = new JLabel();
               title.setFont(new Font("Arial", Font.ITALIC | Font.BOLD, 11));
               add(title, BorderLayout.NORTH);
               desc = new JTextArea();
               desc.setFont(new Font("Arial", Font.PLAIN, 9));
               desc.setOpaque(false);
               desc.setWrapStyleWord(true);
               desc.setLineWrap(true);
               add(desc, BorderLayout.CENTER);
          public Component getListCellRendererComponent(JList list, Object value,
                    int index, boolean isSelected, boolean cellHasFocus) {
               Insets insets = desc.getInsets();
            int rendererLeftRightInsets = insets.left + insets.right + 8;  // 8 from panel border
            int topDownInsets = insets.top + insets.bottom;
            int listWidth = list.getWidth();
            int viewWidth = listWidth;
               int scrollPaneLeftRightInsets = 0;
               JScrollPane scroll = (JScrollPane) SwingUtilities.getAncestorOfClass( JScrollPane.class, list );
               if ( scroll != null && scroll.getViewport().getView() == list ) {
                    Insets scrollPaneInsets = scroll.getBorder().getBorderInsets(scroll);
                 scrollPaneLeftRightInsets = scrollPaneInsets.left + scrollPaneInsets.right;
                 listWidth = scroll.getWidth() - scrollPaneLeftRightInsets;
                 JScrollBar verticalScrollBar = scroll.getVerticalScrollBar();
                 if (verticalScrollBar.isShowing()) {
                     listWidth -= verticalScrollBar.getWidth();
                 viewWidth = listWidth - rendererLeftRightInsets;
               MyListItem item = (MyListItem)value;
               title.setText(item.title);
               if (item.description != null && item.description.length() > 0) {
                    desc.setText(item.description);
                    desc.setVisible(true);
                    View rootView = desc.getUI().getRootView(desc);
                 rootView.setSize( viewWidth, Float.MAX_VALUE );
                float yAxisSpan = rootView.getPreferredSpan(View.Y_AXIS);
                    Dimension preferredSize = new Dimension( viewWidth, (int)yAxisSpan + topDownInsets );
                    desc.setPreferredSize( preferredSize );
               } else {
                    desc.setVisible(false);
               title.setPreferredSize( new Dimension( viewWidth, title.getPreferredSize().height ) );
               // uncomment next line to to somewhat simulate the effect I want (hacked using the rows array)
               //desc.setRows(rows[index]);
               if (isSelected) {
                    setBackground(list.getSelectionBackground());
                    setForeground(list.getSelectionForeground());
               else {
                    if (index % 2 == 0)
                         setBackground(altColor);
                    else
                         setBackground(list.getBackground());
                    setForeground(list.getForeground());
               return this;
     static class MyListItem {
          String title;
          String description;
          public MyListItem(String title, String description) {
               this.title = title;
               this.description = description;
}