Selecting Text in a JTextArea

Question

Hi, I have this problem with the JTextArea Caret positioning behaviour.
I wanna select some text when I click (click, no dragging included) on a line. I use setcaretposition in the beggining of the line and movecaretposition in the end of the line.
Nothing happens!!
If I click the mouse and drag it a little bit then it works fine selecting the text showing the right colors and everything.
I tried with the addhighlight method in the higlighter instance of JTextArea but it doesn't really select it, just changes it color.
What do I have to do so that I can select text without having to drag when I click??
Thaks a lot

Answer 1

This shows you how to do it using a right click:
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import javax.swing.*;
import javax.swing.event.*;
import javax.swing.text.*;
public class TextAreaTest extends JFrame
     JTextArea textArea;
     JScrollPane scrollPane;
     public TextAreaTest()
          textArea = new JTextArea( "one two\nthree four", 10, 30 )
               //  the tab character is not inserted into the text area
               public boolean isManagingFocus()
                    return false;
          textArea.setLineWrap( true );
          textArea.setSize( textArea.getPreferredSize() );
          textArea.setSelectionColor( Color.red );
          textArea.setSelectedTextColor( Color.green );
          try
               System.out.println( textArea.modelToView( 4 ) );
               System.out.println( Utilities.getRowStart(textArea, 4) );
          catch (Exception e) {}
          textArea.addMouseListener( new MouseAdapter()
               public void mouseClicked(MouseEvent e)
                    if ( SwingUtilities.isRightMouseButton(e) )
                         try
                              int offset = textArea.viewToModel( e.getPoint() );
                              System.out.println( textArea.modelToView( offset ) );
                              int start = Utilities.getWordStart(textArea, offset);
                              int end = Utilities.getWordEnd(textArea, offset);
                              String word = textArea.getDocument().getText(start, end-start);
                              System.out.println( "Selected word: " + word );
                              int rowStart = Utilities.getRowStart(textArea, offset);
                              int rowEnd = Utilities.getRowEnd(textArea, offset);
                              System.out.println( "Row start offset: " + rowStart );
                              System.out.println( "Row end   offset: " + rowEnd );
                              textArea.select(rowStart, rowEnd);
                         catch (Exception e2) {}
          textArea.addCaretListener( new CaretListener()
               public void caretUpdate(CaretEvent e)
                    int caretPosition = textArea.getCaretPosition();
                    Element root = textArea.getDocument().getDefaultRootElement();
                    int row = root.getElementIndex( caretPosition );
                    int column = caretPosition - root.getElement( row ).getStartOffset();
                    System.out.println( "Row   : " + ( row + 1 ) );
                    System.out.println( "Column: " + ( column + 1 ) );
          textArea.addKeyListener( new KeyAdapter()
               public void keyPressed(KeyEvent e)
                    System.out.println( textArea.getDocument().getDefaultRootElement().getElementCount() );
          scrollPane = new JScrollPane( textArea );
          getContentPane().add( scrollPane );
          getContentPane().add( new JTextField(10),BorderLayout.SOUTH );
//          textArea.getInputMap().put( KeyStroke.getKeyStroke(KeyEvent.VK_ENTER, 0), "" );
     public static void main(String[] args)
          TextAreaTest frame = new TextAreaTest();
          frame.setDefaultCloseOperation( EXIT_ON_CLOSE );
          frame.pack();
          frame.setVisible(true);
}