java - How to make JTextPane autoscroll only when scroll bar is at bottom and scroll lock is off?

Question

How to make JTextPane autoscroll only when scroll bar is at bottom and scroll lock is off? This shouldn't have anything to do with caret, which is what I seem to be finding all over Google. :(

Answer 1

I think my program below meets your requirements exactly, with one possible caveat: you're not allowed to type in the text area. So this would be good for a log viewer, but not an interactive console. The code runs a little long because I have made it into a ready-to-run demo of the approach. I suggest running the program as-is and checking out the behavior. If the behavior works well for you, then invest a little time in studying the code. I have included comments in the code to highlight some of the more important sections.

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Update 2013-07-17: You may also want to check out random dude's solution in his separate answer farther down the page. His approach is more elegant than mine.

Also see Swing: Scroll to bottom of JScrollPane, conditional on current viewport location for a potential solution that does not interfere with the caret position.

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SCCE source code follows:

import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.util.*;
import java.util.Timer;

import javax.swing.*;
import javax.swing.event.*;
import javax.swing.text.*;

public class ScrollingJTextAreaExample extends JFrame {
    // Worker thread to help periodically append example messages to JTextArea
    Timer timer = new Timer();
    // Merely informative counter, will be displayed with the example messages
    int messageCounter = 0;
    // GUI components
    JScrollPane jScrollPane;
    JTextArea jTextArea;

    public ScrollingJTextAreaExample() {
        initComponents(); // Boiler plate GUI construction and layout

        // Configure JTextArea to not update the cursor position after
        // inserting or appending text to the JTextArea. This disables the
        // JTextArea's usual behavior of scrolling automatically whenever
        // inserting or appending text into the JTextArea: we want scrolling
        // to only occur at our discretion, not blindly. NOTE that this
        // breaks normal typing into the JTextArea. This approach assumes
        // that all updates to the ScrollingJTextArea are programmatic.
        DefaultCaret caret = (DefaultCaret) jTextArea.getCaret();
        caret.setUpdatePolicy(DefaultCaret.NEVER_UPDATE);

        // Schedule a task to periodically append example messages to jTextArea
        timer.schedule(new TextGeneratorTask(), 250, 250);

        // This DocumentListener takes care of re-scrolling when appropriate
        Document document = jTextArea.getDocument();
        document.addDocumentListener(new ScrollingDocumentListener());
    }

    // Boring, vanilla GUI construction and layout code
    private void initComponents() {
        jScrollPane = new javax.swing.JScrollPane();
        jTextArea = new javax.swing.JTextArea();
        setDefaultCloseOperation(WindowConstants.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        jScrollPane.setViewportView(jTextArea);
        getContentPane().add(jScrollPane, java.awt.BorderLayout.CENTER);
        setSize(320, 240);
        setLocationRelativeTo(null);
    }

    // ScrollingDocumentListener takes care of re-scrolling when appropriate
    class ScrollingDocumentListener implements DocumentListener {
        public void changedUpdate(DocumentEvent e) {
            maybeScrollToBottom();
        }

        public void insertUpdate(DocumentEvent e) {
            maybeScrollToBottom();
        }

        public void removeUpdate(DocumentEvent e) {
            maybeScrollToBottom();
        }

        private void maybeScrollToBottom() {
            JScrollBar scrollBar = jScrollPane.getVerticalScrollBar();
            boolean scrollBarAtBottom = isScrollBarFullyExtended(scrollBar);
            boolean scrollLock = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit()
                    .getLockingKeyState(KeyEvent.VK_SCROLL_LOCK);
            if (scrollBarAtBottom && !scrollLock) {
                // Push the call to "scrollToBottom" back TWO PLACES on the
                // AWT-EDT queue so that it runs *after* Swing has had an
                // opportunity to "react" to the appending of new text:
                // this ensures that we "scrollToBottom" only after a new
                // bottom has been recalculated during the natural
                // revalidation of the GUI that occurs after having
                // appending new text to the JTextArea.
                EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
                    public void run() {
                        EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
                            public void run() {
                                scrollToBottom(jTextArea);
                            }
                        });
                    }
                });
            }
        }
    }

    class TextGeneratorTask extends TimerTask {
        public void run() {
            EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
                public void run() {
                    String message = (++messageCounter)
                            + " Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur"
                            + " adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor"
                            + " incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.
";
                    jTextArea.append(message);
                }
            });
        }
    }

    public static boolean isScrollBarFullyExtended(JScrollBar vScrollBar) {
        BoundedRangeModel model = vScrollBar.getModel();
        return (model.getExtent() + model.getValue()) == model.getMaximum();
    }

    public static void scrollToBottom(JComponent component) {
        Rectangle visibleRect = component.getVisibleRect();
        visibleRect.y = component.getHeight() - visibleRect.height;
        component.scrollRectToVisible(visibleRect);
    }

    public static void main(String args[]) {
        java.awt.EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
            public void run() {
                new ScrollingJTextAreaExample().setVisible(true);
            }
        });
    }
}