Sectioned List in Java/Swing?

Question

I have a list of items in a JList for the user to select. Since it's a lot of items (say, cities in states), I want to divide the list into sections. The section headings should not be selectable, though. So for my cities/states example, this might look like this:

• State 1
  
  • City 1
  • City 2
  • City 3
• State 2
  • City 4
  • City 5
  • City 6

It wouldn't be so difficult to write this myself by embedding JLists in a custom ListCellRenderer, but I'm wondering if there already is a class like that out there.

Answer 1

Maybe by using JTree ? What you describe is a Tree with two levels.

Answer 2

You could use what Apple calls a SourceList. You see them in action in iTunes and in Mac OS X's Finder. It is an elegant solution to the problem you describe.

A cross-platform, open source Java Swing component for doing this is here: http://explodingpixels.wordpress.com/2008/09/08/mac-widgets-for-java/