Handling overflowing components in swing

Question

In my app I have some longish labels, on a chinese os the labels overflow and push out other components also. This has only been observed on a chinese os. How can I detect and handle overflowing components?

Answer 1

JComponent has a setMaximumSize method that could help you. Depending on the LayoutManager you are using, the results may be different. For setting constraints like this at Layout level, check the SpringLayout.

Answer 2

I am guessing that this is a problem for some, depending on the window-size and language.

Maybe not what you want, but you can check the size of the text like this:

// get metrics from the graphics
FontMetrics metrics = graphics.getFontMetrics(font);
// get the height of a line of text in this font and render context
int hgt = metrics.getHeight();
// get the advance of my text in this font and render context
int adv = metrics.stringWidth(text);

If the text is longer than a limit (you have to pull out of a hat,) you can truncate or perhaps even abbreviate it - if it is known, or possibly replace it with an icon and use a tooltip to show the full text.

Answer 3

You can make a JTextArea behave like a label with a bit of extra code, but it will wrap the text over lines as necessary instead of abbreviating with an ellipsis (...). Design your UI with wrapping in mind.

JTextArea label = new JTextArea();
label.setText( text );
label.setWrapStyleWord( true );
label.setLineWrap( true );
label.setEnabled( false );
label.setOpaque( false );