Set scrollbar policy in JScrollPane container

Byron KiourtzoglouNovember 11th, 2012Last Updated: April 5th, 2013

0 492 1 minute read

With this example we are going to see how to set scroll bar policy in a JScrollPane container. This is very useful when you want to further customize your scroll bars.

Basically all you have to do to set scroll bar policy in a JScrollPane is:

Create a new JFrame.
Create a new JTextArea.
Create a new JScrollPane with the above text area.
Use setHorizontalScrollBarPolicy, setVerticalScrollBarPolicy to set the scroll bar policy.

Let’s see the code:

package com.javacodegeeks.snippets.desktop;
 
import java.awt.FlowLayout;
 
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JScrollPane;
import javax.swing.JTextArea;
 
public class SetScrollbarPolicyInJScrollPaneContainer {
 
    private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;
 
    private static void createAndShowGUI() {
 
        // Create and set up the window.
        final JFrame frame = new JFrame("Scroll Pane Example");
 
        // Display the window.
        frame.setSize(200, 200);
        frame.setVisible(true);
        frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
 
        // set flow layout for the frame
        frame.getContentPane().setLayout(new FlowLayout());
 
        JTextArea textArea = new JTextArea(5, 5);
        JScrollPane scrollableTextArea = new JScrollPane(textArea);
 
        // determine when the horizontal scrollbar appears in the scrollpane
        int horizontalPolicy = JScrollPane.HORIZONTAL_SCROLLBAR_AS_NEEDED;
        // int horizontalPolicy = JScrollPane.HORIZONTAL_SCROLLBAR_ALWAYS;
        // int horizontalPolicy = JScrollPane.HORIZONTAL_SCROLLBAR_NEVER;
 
        // determine when the vertical scrollbar appears in the scrollpane
        int vericalPolicy = JScrollPane.VERTICAL_SCROLLBAR_AS_NEEDED;
        // int vericalPolicy = JScrollPane.VERTICAL_SCROLLBAR_ALWAYS;
        // int vericalPolicy = JScrollPane.VERTICAL_SCROLLBAR_NEVER;
 
        scrollableTextArea.setHorizontalScrollBarPolicy(horizontalPolicy);
        scrollableTextArea.setVerticalScrollBarPolicy(vericalPolicy);
 
        frame.getContentPane().add(scrollableTextArea);
 
    }
 
    public static void main(String[] args) {
 
  //Schedule a job for the event-dispatching thread:
 
  //creating and showing this application's GUI.
 
  javax.swing.SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
 
public void run() {
 
    createAndShowGUI(); 
 
}
 
  });
    }
 
}