Question

Is there any way to tell during the execution of the valueChanged method of a ListSelectionListener whether the user clicked the JList or whether setSelectedIndex was called by some other code?

Answer 1

AFAIK, no. But if the goal is to only execute something if the selection comes from the user, you may set a flag before selecting an index in the code to signal that the selection doesn’t come from the user, or remove the listener and add it afterwards:

private void selectIndexInList(int index) {
    this.selectionComesFromTheCode = true;
    try {
        list.setSelectedIndex(index);
    }
    finally {
        this.selectionComesFromTheCode = false;
    }
}

@Override
public void valueChanged(ListSelectionEvent e) {
    if (!this.selectionComesFromTheCode) {
        ...
    }
}