Background color of the selected item in an uneditable JComboBox

Question

The background color of the selected item in an uneditable JComboBox is a sort of blue:

Is there any way to make this a different color, such as white, for example?

Lunik

Related, possibly duplicate, can't decide: #10258724 – Caddie

Answer 1

This should work

jComboBox1.setRenderer(new DefaultListCellRenderer() {
    @Override
    public void paint(Graphics g) {
        setBackground(Color.WHITE);
        setForeground(Color.BLACK);
        super.paint(g);
    }
});

Taciturnity

This only works, if you don't need to override the getListCellRendererComponent method of the CellRenderer. If you have to do this, use the setSelectionBackground, like it was shown in camickr's answer. – Guitarfish

Answer 2

The background assigned by the renderer is overriden by the selection background color of the JList that is used in the popup for the combo box. Check out the "paintCurrentValue" method of the BasicComboBoxUI class. So the workaround would be:

JComboBox comboBox = new JComboBox(...);
Object child = comboBox.getAccessibleContext().getAccessibleChild(0);
BasicComboPopup popup = (BasicComboPopup)child;
JList list = popup.getList();
list.setSelectionBackground(Color.RED);

This will affect the rendering of the popup as well. If you don't want it to affect the popup then you will need to create a custom renderer to specifically set the background of selected items.

Outguess

Answer 3

Have you tried writing your own, custom, ListCellRenderer?

When that method is asked to provide a cell-rendering component you get the following arguments:

 public Component getListCellRendererComponent(JList list,
                                               Object value,
                                               int index,
                                               boolean isSelected,
                                               boolean cellHasFocus) {

Deutzia

Use the code aioob provided and just cast value to a JLabel and set its background to the color you want. – Interlude

Yes, I tried that. That can change the appearance of the menu items as you see them in the drop-down box. However, it doesn't change the appearance of the selected item. – Lunik

Answer 4

This works for me:

myComboBox.setBackground(Color.RED);
myComboBox.repaint();

Ikey

Please try to give proper explanation of the answer. – Disrespect