java SWT: how can I draw a widget to an offscreen buffer

Question

I would like to draw the contents of a StyledText widget in to an Image; this will then provide a convenient way to stick the image into a Table cell.

Any suggestions about the best way to go about this?

Answer 1

Why do you want to create an image?

You could just render the the StyledText-widget in the table cell. If you have a lot of items and it is a performance problem you could create a virtual table by using SWT.VIRTUAL. If you're using JFace check out org.eclipse.jface.viewers.DelegatingStyledCellLabelProvider.IStyledLabelProvider.

If you're using plain SWT you should be able to use a TableEditor with a StyledText-widget as the editor. Something like this:

Table table = new Table(new Shell(new Display()), SWT.NONE);
table.setHeaderVisible (true);
TableColumn column = new TableColumn (table, SWT.NONE);
StyledText styledText = new StyledText(table, SWT.NONE);
TableItem item = new TableItem (table, SWT.NONE);
TableEditor editor = new TableEditor (table);
editor.grabHorizontal = true;
editor.grabVertical = true;
editor.setEditor (styledText, item, 0);