How do I create a right click context menu in Java Swing?

Question

You are probably manually calling setVisible(true) on the menu. That can cause some nasty buggy behavior in the menu.

The show(Component, int x, int x) method handles all of the things you need to happen, (Highlighting things on mouseover and closing the popup when necessary) where using setVisible(true) just shows the menu without adding any additional behavior.

To make a right click popup menu simply create a JPopupMenu.

class PopUpDemo extends JPopupMenu {
    JMenuItem anItem;
    public PopUpDemo() {
        anItem = new JMenuItem("Click Me!");
        add(anItem);
    }
}

Then, all you need to do is add a custom MouseListener to the components you would like the menu to popup for.

class PopClickListener extends MouseAdapter {
    public void mousePressed(MouseEvent e) {
        if (e.isPopupTrigger())
            doPop(e);
    }

    public void mouseReleased(MouseEvent e) {
        if (e.isPopupTrigger())
            doPop(e);
    }

    private void doPop(MouseEvent e) {
        PopUpDemo menu = new PopUpDemo();
        menu.show(e.getComponent(), e.getX(), e.getY());
    }
}

// Then on your component(s)
component.addMouseListener(new PopClickListener());

Of course, the tutorials have a slightly more in-depth explanation.

Note: If you notice that the popup menu is appearing way off from where the user clicked, try using the e.getXOnScreen() and e.getYOnScreen() methods for the x and y coordinates.

This question is a bit old - as are the answers (and the tutorial as well)

The current api for setting a popupMenu in Swing is

myComponent.setComponentPopupMenu(myPopupMenu);

This way it will be shown automagically, both for mouse and keyboard triggers (the latter depends on LAF). Plus, it supports re-using the same popup across a container's children. To enable that feature:

myChild.setInheritsPopupMenu(true);

There's a section on Bringing Up a Popup Menu in the How to Use Menus article of The Java Tutorials which explains how to use the JPopupMenu class.

The example code in the tutorial shows how to add MouseListeners to the components which should display a pop-up menu, and displays the menu accordingly.

(The method you describe is fairly similar to the way the tutorial presents the way to show a pop-up menu on a component.)

The following code implements a default context menu known from Windows with copy, cut, paste, select all, undo and redo functions. It also works on Linux and Mac OS X:

import javax.swing.*;
import javax.swing.text.JTextComponent;
import javax.swing.undo.UndoManager;
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.datatransfer.Clipboard;
import java.awt.datatransfer.DataFlavor;
import java.awt.event.KeyAdapter;
import java.awt.event.KeyEvent;
import java.awt.event.MouseAdapter;
import java.awt.event.MouseEvent;

public class DefaultContextMenu extends JPopupMenu
{
    private Clipboard clipboard;

    private UndoManager undoManager;

    private JMenuItem undo;
    private JMenuItem redo;
    private JMenuItem cut;
    private JMenuItem copy;
    private JMenuItem paste;
    private JMenuItem delete;
    private JMenuItem selectAll;

    private JTextComponent textComponent;

    public DefaultContextMenu()
    {
        undoManager = new UndoManager();
        clipboard = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getSystemClipboard();

        addPopupMenuItems();
    }

    private void addPopupMenuItems()
    {
        undo = new JMenuItem("Undo");
        undo.setEnabled(false);
        undo.setAccelerator(KeyStroke.getKeyStroke(KeyEvent.VK_Z, Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getMenuShortcutKeyMask()));
        undo.addActionListener(event -> undoManager.undo());
        add(undo);

        redo = new JMenuItem("Redo");
        redo.setEnabled(false);
        redo.setAccelerator(KeyStroke.getKeyStroke(KeyEvent.VK_Y, Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getMenuShortcutKeyMask()));
        redo.addActionListener(event -> undoManager.redo());
        add(redo);

        add(new JSeparator());

        cut = new JMenuItem("Cut");
        cut.setEnabled(false);
        cut.setAccelerator(KeyStroke.getKeyStroke(KeyEvent.VK_X, Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getMenuShortcutKeyMask()));
        cut.addActionListener(event -> textComponent.cut());
        add(cut);

        copy = new JMenuItem("Copy");
        copy.setEnabled(false);
        copy.setAccelerator(KeyStroke.getKeyStroke(KeyEvent.VK_C, Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getMenuShortcutKeyMask()));
        copy.addActionListener(event -> textComponent.copy());
        add(copy);

        paste = new JMenuItem("Paste");
        paste.setEnabled(false);
        paste.setAccelerator(KeyStroke.getKeyStroke(KeyEvent.VK_V, Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getMenuShortcutKeyMask()));
        paste.addActionListener(event -> textComponent.paste());
        add(paste);

        delete = new JMenuItem("Delete");
        delete.setEnabled(false);
        delete.setAccelerator(KeyStroke.getKeyStroke(KeyEvent.VK_DELETE, Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getMenuShortcutKeyMask()));
        delete.addActionListener(event -> textComponent.replaceSelection(""));
        add(delete);

        add(new JSeparator());

        selectAll = new JMenuItem("Select All");
        selectAll.setEnabled(false);
        selectAll.setAccelerator(KeyStroke.getKeyStroke(KeyEvent.VK_A, Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getMenuShortcutKeyMask()));
        selectAll.addActionListener(event -> textComponent.selectAll());
        add(selectAll);
    }

    private void addTo(JTextComponent textComponent)
    {
        textComponent.addKeyListener(new KeyAdapter()
        {
            @Override
            public void keyPressed(KeyEvent pressedEvent)
            {
                if ((pressedEvent.getKeyCode() == KeyEvent.VK_Z)
                        && ((pressedEvent.getModifiersEx() & Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getMenuShortcutKeyMask()) != 0))
                {
                    if (undoManager.canUndo())
                    {
                        undoManager.undo();
                    }
                }

                if ((pressedEvent.getKeyCode() == KeyEvent.VK_Y)
                        && ((pressedEvent.getModifiersEx() & Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getMenuShortcutKeyMask()) != 0))
                {
                    if (undoManager.canRedo())
                    {
                        undoManager.redo();
                    }
                }
            }
        });

        textComponent.addMouseListener(new MouseAdapter()
        {
            @Override
            public void mousePressed(MouseEvent releasedEvent)
            {
                handleContextMenu(releasedEvent);
            }

            @Override
            public void mouseReleased(MouseEvent releasedEvent)
            {
                handleContextMenu(releasedEvent);
            }
        });

        textComponent.getDocument().addUndoableEditListener(event -> undoManager.addEdit(event.getEdit()));
    }

    private void handleContextMenu(MouseEvent releasedEvent)
    {
        if (releasedEvent.getButton() == MouseEvent.BUTTON3)
        {
            processClick(releasedEvent);
        }
    }

    private void processClick(MouseEvent event)
    {
        textComponent = (JTextComponent) event.getSource();
        textComponent.requestFocus();

        boolean enableUndo = undoManager.canUndo();
        boolean enableRedo = undoManager.canRedo();
        boolean enableCut = false;
        boolean enableCopy = false;
        boolean enablePaste = false;
        boolean enableDelete = false;
        boolean enableSelectAll = false;

        String selectedText = textComponent.getSelectedText();
        String text = textComponent.getText();

        if (text != null)
        {
            if (text.length() > 0)
            {
                enableSelectAll = true;
            }
        }

        if (selectedText != null)
        {
            if (selectedText.length() > 0)
            {
                enableCut = true;
                enableCopy = true;
                enableDelete = true;
            }
        }

        if (clipboard.isDataFlavorAvailable(DataFlavor.stringFlavor) && textComponent.isEnabled())
        {
            enablePaste = true;
        }

        undo.setEnabled(enableUndo);
        redo.setEnabled(enableRedo);
        cut.setEnabled(enableCut);
        copy.setEnabled(enableCopy);
        paste.setEnabled(enablePaste);
        delete.setEnabled(enableDelete);
        selectAll.setEnabled(enableSelectAll);

        // Shows the popup menu
        show(textComponent, event.getX(), event.getY());
    }

    public static void addDefaultContextMenu(JTextComponent component)
    {
        DefaultContextMenu defaultContextMenu = new DefaultContextMenu();
        defaultContextMenu.addTo(component);
    }
}

Usage:

JTextArea textArea = new JTextArea();
DefaultContextMenu.addDefaultContextMenu(textArea);

Now the textArea will have a context menu when it is right-clicked on.

I will correct usage for that method that @BullyWillPlaza suggested. Reason is that when I try to add add textArea to only contextMenu it's not visible, and if i add it to both to contextMenu and some panel it ecounters: Different parent double association if i try to switch to Design editor.

TexetObjcet.addMouseListener(new MouseAdapter() {
        @Override
        public void mouseClicked(MouseEvent e) {
            if (SwingUtilities.isRightMouseButton(e)){
                contextmenu.add(TexetObjcet);
                contextmenu.show(TexetObjcet, 0, 0);
            }
        }
    }); 

Make mouse listener like this for text object you need to have popup on. What this will do is when you right click on your text object it will then add that popup and display it. This way you don't encounter that error. Solution that @BullyWillPlaza made is very good, rich and fast to implement in your program so you should try it our see how you like it.