What is the difference between the setEditable() and the setEnabled() in a jCombobox? Can a combobox be editable but not enabled and other way around? In which situation would you use which method?
Can you imagine a situation in which you would do setEnabled(false) together with setEditable(true)?
SetEnable() - Enables the combo box so that items can be selected.
SetEditable() - Determines whether the JComboBox field is editable.
If you call setEditable(true), the JComboBox's text field becomes editable, allowing the user to type text with the keyboard in addition to selecting an item from the list.
If you call setEnabled(false), the entire control becomes disabled, preventing the user from interacting with it at all.
setEditable(boolean) determines if the JComboBox allows text entry in addition to selecting a value via pull-down.
setEnabled(boolean) determines if the JComboBox is able to be interacted with at all. If it is not enabled, it is displayed as grayed out.
A JComboBox can have any mix of these properties -
setEditable(true) + setEnabled(true) = JComboBox allows text input in addition to pull down values and user can interact with it.setEditable(false) + setEnabled(true) = JComboBox only allows values from the pull down to be selected and user can interact with it.setEditable(true) + setEnabled(false) = JComboBox allows text input in addition to pull down values but user cannot interact with it.setEditable(false) + setEnabled(false) = JComboBox only allows values from the pull down to be selected and user cannot interact with it. A situation where you may have a JComboBox with setEnabled(false) and setEditable(true) would be where you want a JComboBox that allows text input, but the form is in a state where the value of the JComboBox isn't applicable. You would usually have some action that would call setEnabled(true) on the JComboBox once it does become applicable.
For example, if you have something like a student housing form, there may be a question on the form like 'Do you need a parking space?' with a JCheckbox. There's a JComboBox for the brand of car and a JTextFied for the license plate number. You may have the JComboBox pre-populated with common car brands - Ford, Chevy, Toyota, Honda, etc. - but decide you also want to allow it to be editable in case someone owns something like a Lamborghini (and is staying in student housing - yeah, right...). The value for car brand and license plate number aren't needed unless the user selects the JCheckBox signifying that they need a parking space. You would add a listener to the JCheckBox that would call setEnabled(true) on the JComboBox and JTextField when it was selected, and setEnabled(false) when it wasn't.