scrollbars in JTextArea

Question

How do I add scrollbars to a JTextArea?

Answer 1

Put it in a JScrollPane

Edit: Here is a link for you: http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/uiswing/components/textarea.html

Answer 2

As Fredrik mentions in his answer, the simple way to achieve this is to place the JTextArea in a JScrollPane. This will allow scrolling of the view area of the JTextArea.

Just for the sake of completeness, the following is how it could be achieved:

JTextArea ta = new JTextArea();
JScrollPane sp = new JScrollPane(ta);   // JTextArea is placed in a JScrollPane.

Once the JTextArea is included in the JScrollPane, the JScrollPane should be added to where the text area should be. In the following example, the text area with the scroll bars is added to a JFrame:

JFrame f = new JFrame();
f.getContentPane().add(sp);

Thank you kd304 for mentioning in the comments that one should add the JScrollPane to the container rather than the JTextArea -- I feel it's a common error to add the text area itself to the destination container rather than the scroll pane with text area.

The following articles from The Java Tutorials has more details:

• How to Use Scroll Panes
• How to Use Text Areas

Answer 3

You first have to define a JTextArea as per usual:

public final JTextArea mainConsole = new JTextArea("");

Then you put a JScrollPane over the TextArea

JScrollPane scrollPane = new JScrollPane(mainConsole);
scrollPane.setBounds(10,60,780,500);
scrollPane.setVerticalScrollBarPolicy(ScrollPaneConstants.VERTICAL_SCROLLBAR_ALWAYS);

The last line says that the vertical scrollbar will always be there. There is a similar command for horizontal. Otherwise, the scrollbar will only show up when it is needed (or never, if you use _SCROLLBAR_NEVER). I guess it's your call which way you want to use it.

You can also add wordwrap to the JTextArea if you want to:Guide Here

Good luck,
Norm M

P.S. Make sure you add the ScrollPane to the JPanel and not add the JTextArea.