Question

As stated, I want to change the default TAB behaviour within a JTextArea (so that it acts like a JTextField or similar component)

Here’s the event action

private void diagInputKeyPressed(java.awt.event.KeyEvent evt) {     if(evt.KEY_PRESSED == java.awt.event.KeyEvent.VK_TAB) {         actionInput.transferFocus();     } } 

And here’s the listener

diagInput.addKeyListener(new java.awt.event.KeyAdapter() {     public void keyPressed(java.awt.event.KeyEvent evt) {         diagInputKeyPressed(evt);     } }); 

I’ve tried evt.KEY_TYPED as well with no joy.

Any ideas?

quick edit: I’ve also tried requestFocus() in place of transferFocus()

Answer 1

According to this class:

/**  * Some components treat tabulator (TAB key) in their own way.  * Sometimes the tabulator is supposed to simply transfer the focus  * to the next focusable component.  * <br/>  * Here s how to use this class to override the 'component's default'  * behavior:  * <pre>  * JTextArea  area  = new JTextArea(..);  * <b>TransferFocus.patch( area );</b>  * </pre>  * This should do the trick.   * This time the KeyStrokes are used.  * More elegant solution than TabTransfersFocus().  *   * @author kaimu  * @since 2006-05-14  * @version 1.0  */ public class TransferFocus {      /**      * Patch the behaviour of a component.       * TAB transfers focus to the next focusable component,      * SHIFT+TAB transfers focus to the previous focusable component.      *       * @param c The component to be patched.      */     public static void patch(Component c) {         Set<KeyStroke>          strokes = new HashSet<KeyStroke>(Arrays.asList(KeyStroke.getKeyStroke('pressed TAB')));         c.setFocusTraversalKeys(KeyboardFocusManager.FORWARD_TRAVERSAL_KEYS, strokes);         strokes = new HashSet<KeyStroke>(Arrays.asList(KeyStroke.getKeyStroke('shift pressed TAB')));         c.setFocusTraversalKeys(KeyboardFocusManager.BACKWARD_TRAVERSAL_KEYS, strokes);     } } 

Note that patch() can be even shorter, according to Joshua Goldberg in the comments, since the goal is to get back default behaviors overridden by JTextArea:

component.setFocusTraversalKeys(KeyboardFocusManager.FORWARD_TRAVERS‌​AL_KEYS, null); component.setFocusTraversalKeys(KeyboardFocusManager.BACKWARD_TRAVERS‌​AL_KEYS, null); 

This is used in question ‘How can I modify the behavior of the tab key in a JTextArea?‘

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The previous implementation involved indeed a Listener, and the a transferFocus():

   /**      * Override the behaviour so that TAB key transfers the focus      * to the next focusable component.      */     @Override     public void keyPressed(KeyEvent e) {         if(e.getKeyCode() == KeyEvent.VK_TAB) {             System.out.println(e.getModifiers());             if(e.getModifiers() > 0) a.transferFocusBackward();             else a.transferFocus();              e.consume();         }     } 

e.consume(); might have been what you missed to make it work in your case.