How to change the color of specific words in a JTextPane?

Question

How do I change the color of specific words in a JTextPane just while the user is typing? Should I override JTextPane paintComponent m

Answer 1

You can extend DefaultStyledDocument like I did here for an SQL editor I am building with keyword text coloring ...

    import java.util.ArrayList;
    import java.util.List;
    import javax.swing.text.AttributeSet;
    import javax.swing.text.BadLocationException;
    import javax.swing.text.DefaultStyledDocument;
    import javax.swing.text.Style;

    public class KeywordStyledDocument extends DefaultStyledDocument  {
        private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;
        private Style _defaultStyle;
        private Style _cwStyle;

        public KeywordStyledDocument(Style defaultStyle, Style cwStyle) {
            _defaultStyle =  defaultStyle;
            _cwStyle = cwStyle;
        }

         public void insertString (int offset, String str, AttributeSet a) throws BadLocationException {
             super.insertString(offset, str, a);
             refreshDocument();
         }

         public void remove (int offs, int len) throws BadLocationException {
             super.remove(offs, len);
             refreshDocument();
         }

         private synchronized void refreshDocument() throws BadLocationException {
             String text = getText(0, getLength());
             final List list = processWords(text);

             setCharacterAttributes(0, text.length(), _defaultStyle, true);   
             for(HiliteWord word : list) {
                 int p0 = word._position;
                 setCharacterAttributes(p0, word._word.length(), _cwStyle, true);
             }
         }       

         private static  List processWords(String content) {
             content += " ";
             List hiliteWords = new ArrayList();
             int lastWhitespacePosition = 0;
             String word = "";
             char[] data = content.toCharArray();

             for(int index=0; index < data.length; index++) {
                 char ch = data[index];
                 if(!(Character.isLetter(ch) || Character.isDigit(ch) || ch == '_')) {
                     lastWhitespacePosition = index;
                     if(word.length() > 0) {
                         if(isReservedWord(word)) {
                             hiliteWords.add(new HiliteWord(word,(lastWhitespacePosition - word.length())));
                         }
                         word="";
                     }
                 }
                 else {
                     word += ch;
                 }
            }
            return hiliteWords;
         }

         private static final boolean isReservedWord(String word) {
             return(word.toUpperCase().trim().equals("CROSS") || 
                            word.toUpperCase().trim().equals("CURRENT_DATE") ||
                            word.toUpperCase().trim().equals("CURRENT_TIME") ||
                            word.toUpperCase().trim().equals("CURRENT_TIMESTAMP") ||
                            word.toUpperCase().trim().equals("DISTINCT") ||
                            word.toUpperCase().trim().equals("EXCEPT") ||
                            word.toUpperCase().trim().equals("EXISTS") ||
                            word.toUpperCase().trim().equals("FALSE") ||
                            word.toUpperCase().trim().equals("FETCH") ||
                            word.toUpperCase().trim().equals("FOR") ||
                            word.toUpperCase().trim().equals("FROM") ||
                            word.toUpperCase().trim().equals("FULL") ||
                            word.toUpperCase().trim().equals("GROUP") ||
                            word.toUpperCase().trim().equals("HAVING") ||
                            word.toUpperCase().trim().equals("INNER") ||
                            word.toUpperCase().trim().equals("INTERSECT") ||
                            word.toUpperCase().trim().equals("IS") ||
                            word.toUpperCase().trim().equals("JOIN") ||
                            word.toUpperCase().trim().equals("LIKE") ||
                            word.toUpperCase().trim().equals("LIMIT") ||
                            word.toUpperCase().trim().equals("MINUS") ||
                            word.toUpperCase().trim().equals("NATURAL") ||
                            word.toUpperCase().trim().equals("NOT") ||
                            word.toUpperCase().trim().equals("NULL") ||
                            word.toUpperCase().trim().equals("OFFSET") ||
                            word.toUpperCase().trim().equals("ON") ||
                            word.toUpperCase().trim().equals("ORDER") ||
                            word.toUpperCase().trim().equals("PRIMARY") ||
                            word.toUpperCase().trim().equals("ROWNUM") ||
                            word.toUpperCase().trim().equals("SELECT") ||
                            word.toUpperCase().trim().equals("SYSDATE") ||
                            word.toUpperCase().trim().equals("SYSTIME") ||
                            word.toUpperCase().trim().equals("SYSTIMESTAMP") ||
                            word.toUpperCase().trim().equals("TODAY") ||
                            word.toUpperCase().trim().equals("TRUE") ||
                            word.toUpperCase().trim().equals("UNION") ||
                            word.toUpperCase().trim().equals("UNIQUE") ||
                            word.toUpperCase().trim().equals("WHERE"));
        }
    }

Simply add it to your class like so:

    import java.awt.BorderLayout;
    import java.awt.Color;
    import java.awt.Font;
    import javax.swing.JFrame;
    import javax.swing.JScrollPane;
    import javax.swing.JTextPane;
    import javax.swing.text.BadLocationException;
    import javax.swing.text.Style;
    import javax.swing.text.StyleConstants;
    import javax.swing.text.StyleContext;

    public class SQLEditor extends JFrame {
        private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

        public SQLEditor() {
            StyleContext styleContext = new StyleContext();
            Style defaultStyle = styleContext.getStyle(StyleContext.DEFAULT_STYLE);
            Style cwStyle = styleContext.addStyle("ConstantWidth", null);
            StyleConstants.setForeground(cwStyle, Color.BLUE);
            StyleConstants.setBold(cwStyle, true);

            final JTextPane pane = new JTextPane(new KeywordStyledDocument(defaultStyle, cwStyle));
            pane.setFont(new Font("Courier New", Font.PLAIN, 12));

            JScrollPane scrollPane = new JScrollPane(pane);
            getContentPane().add(scrollPane, BorderLayout.CENTER);
            setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
            setSize(375, 400);      
        }

        public static void main(String[] args) throws BadLocationException {
            SQLEditor app = new SQLEditor();
            app.setVisible(true);
        }
    }

Here's the missing HiliteWord class ...

public class HiliteWord {

    int _position;  
    String _word;

    public HiliteWord(String word, int position) {
        _position = position;   
        _word = word;
    }
}