I’m creating a JTree and adding some nodes doing something like this: DefaultMutableTreeNode top

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Asked: June 12, 20262026-06-12T04:27:59+00:00 2026-06-12T04:27:59+00:00

I’m creating a JTree and adding some nodes doing something like this: DefaultMutableTreeNode top

0

I’m creating a JTree and adding some nodes doing something like this:

DefaultMutableTreeNode top = new DefaultMutableTreeNode("The Java Series");
tree = new JTree(top);
...
DefaultMutableTreeNode node = new DefaultMutableTreeNode("<html><a href=\"    \">"+code+"</a>  "+description+"</html>");
top.add(node);
...

Now I added a “addMouseMotionListener” to the node which is ok. My problem is that the mouse cursor changes whenever I hover over any part of the node. What I really want is to only change mouse cursor when hovering over the HTML hyperlink text part of the node

 "<a href=\"\">"+code+"</a>"

and NOT the description.

So is there a way to make the mouse cursor change only when hovering in certain parts of the node?

Thanks in advance.

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1 Answer

Editorial Team · Answer 1 · 2026-06-12T04:28:01+00:00

OK, it took me a while, but what I described in my comment seems to work. There may be other/better ways and I would love to read about it, but so far this is all I have found.

The idea is that:

I use a JEditorPane as a TreeCellRenderer
I listen for mouse move (and also, as a bonus for mouse click)
For each event I recreate the renderer for the hovered cell
I translate the event to the component coordinates
I use viewToModel to find if I am hovering an anchor element
I change the cursor accordingly.

Here is the code and as a bonus, you also get working hyperlinks!

import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.Component;
import java.awt.Cursor;
import java.awt.Desktop;
import java.awt.Point;
import java.awt.Rectangle;
import java.awt.event.MouseAdapter;
import java.awt.event.MouseEvent;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.net.URI;
import java.net.URISyntaxException;

import javax.swing.JEditorPane;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JScrollPane;
import javax.swing.JTree;
import javax.swing.SwingUtilities;
import javax.swing.UIManager;
import javax.swing.UnsupportedLookAndFeelException;
import javax.swing.text.AttributeSet;
import javax.swing.text.Element;
import javax.swing.text.html.HTML;
import javax.swing.text.html.HTMLDocument;
import javax.swing.tree.DefaultMutableTreeNode;
import javax.swing.tree.DefaultTreeCellRenderer;
import javax.swing.tree.DefaultTreeModel;
import javax.swing.tree.TreeCellRenderer;
import javax.swing.tree.TreeModel;
import javax.swing.tree.TreeNode;
import javax.swing.tree.TreePath;

public class TestTreeHyperlinks {

    private final class HyperlinkMouseListener extends MouseAdapter {
        private final JTree tree;

        private HyperlinkMouseListener(JTree tree) {
            this.tree = tree;
        }

        @Override
        public void mouseExited(MouseEvent e) {
            tree.setCursor(Cursor.getDefaultCursor());
        }

        @Override
        public void mouseClicked(MouseEvent e) {
            Element h = getHyperlinkElement(e);
            if (h != null) {
                Object attribute = h.getAttributes().getAttribute(HTML.Tag.A);
                if (attribute instanceof AttributeSet) {
                    AttributeSet set = (AttributeSet) attribute;
                    String href = (String) set.getAttribute(HTML.Attribute.HREF);
                    if (href != null) {
                        try {
                            Desktop.getDesktop().browse(new URI(href));
                        } catch (IOException e1) {
                            e1.printStackTrace();
                        } catch (URISyntaxException e1) {
                            e1.printStackTrace();
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        }

        @Override
        public void mouseMoved(MouseEvent event) {
            boolean isHyperlink = isHyperlink(event);
            if (isHyperlink) {
                tree.setCursor(Cursor.getPredefinedCursor(Cursor.HAND_CURSOR));
            } else {
                tree.setCursor(Cursor.getDefaultCursor());
            }

        }

        private boolean isHyperlink(MouseEvent event) {
            return getHyperlinkElement(event) != null;
        }

        private Element getHyperlinkElement(MouseEvent event) {
            Point p = event.getPoint();
            int selRow = tree.getRowForLocation(p.x, p.y);
            TreeCellRenderer r = tree.getCellRenderer();
            if (selRow != -1 && r != null) {
                TreePath path = tree.getPathForRow(selRow);
                Object lastPath = path.getLastPathComponent();
                Component rComponent = r.getTreeCellRendererComponent(tree, lastPath, tree.isRowSelected(selRow), tree.isExpanded(selRow),
                        tree.getModel().isLeaf(lastPath), selRow, true);
                if (rComponent instanceof JEditorPane) {
                    Rectangle pathBounds = tree.getPathBounds(path);
                    JEditorPane editor = (JEditorPane) rComponent;
                    editor.setBounds(tree.getRowBounds(selRow));
                    p.translate(-pathBounds.x, -pathBounds.y);
                    int pos = editor.getUI().viewToModel(editor, p);
                    if (pos >= 0 && editor.getDocument() instanceof HTMLDocument) {
                        HTMLDocument hdoc = (HTMLDocument) editor.getDocument();
                        Element elem = hdoc.getCharacterElement(pos);
                        if (elem.getAttributes().getAttribute(HTML.Tag.A) != null) {
                            return elem;
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
            return null;
        }
    }

    @SuppressWarnings("serial")
    public class MyTreeCellRenderer extends DefaultTreeCellRenderer implements TreeCellRenderer {

        private JEditorPane editorPane;

        public MyTreeCellRenderer() {
            editorPane = new JEditorPane("text/html", null);
        }

        @Override
        public Component getTreeCellRendererComponent(JTree tree, Object value, boolean selected, boolean expanded, boolean leaf, int row,
                boolean hasFocus) {
            Component c = super.getTreeCellRendererComponent(tree, value, selected, expanded, leaf, row, hasFocus);
            if (c instanceof JLabel) {
                JLabel label = (JLabel) c;
                editorPane.setText(label.getText());
                editorPane.setToolTipText(label.getToolTipText());
                editorPane.setOpaque(label.isOpaque());
                editorPane.setBackground(label.getBackground());
                editorPane.setBorder(label.getBorder());
            }
            return editorPane;
        }
    }

    protected void initUI() {
        final JTree tree = new JTree(getTreeModel());
        tree.setCellRenderer(new MyTreeCellRenderer());
        HyperlinkMouseListener listener = new HyperlinkMouseListener(tree);
        tree.addMouseListener(listener);
        tree.addMouseMotionListener(listener);
        JFrame f = new JFrame(TestTreeHyperlinks.class.getSimpleName());
        f.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        f.add(new JScrollPane(tree), BorderLayout.CENTER);
        f.pack();
        f.setSize(f.getWidth() + 100, f.getHeight() + 100);
        f.setVisible(true);

    }

    private TreeModel getTreeModel() {
        return new DefaultTreeModel(
                getNodes(new DefaultMutableTreeNode("<html>Root <a href=\"http://www.google.be\">Google</a></html>"), 5));
    }

    private TreeNode getNodes(DefaultMutableTreeNode parent, int i) {
        if (i > 0) {
            for (int j = 0; j < 5; j++) {
                DefaultMutableTreeNode newChild = new DefaultMutableTreeNode(
                        "<html>Node "
                                + (j + 1)
                                + " <a href=\"http://www.stackoverflow.com\">a link to stackoverflow</a></html> and some more text not in an hyperlink");
                getNodes(newChild, i - 1);
                parent.add(newChild);
            }
        }
        return parent;
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) throws ClassNotFoundException, InstantiationException, IllegalAccessException,
            UnsupportedLookAndFeelException {
        UIManager.setLookAndFeel(UIManager.getSystemLookAndFeelClassName());
        SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {

            @Override
            public void run() {
                new TestTreeHyperlinks().initUI();
            }
        });
    }

}

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