How to add close button to a JTabbedPane Tab?

Question

I'm working in with a JTabbedPane, I need to add a close button in the tabs to close the current one.

I have been searching and as I understand I must extend from JPanel and add the close button as they say here But, is there a way to add the close buttons extending JTabbedPane or is there a easier way to do it?

Thanks in advance, I really appreciate your time and your help.

Answer 1

Essentially, you're going to need to supply a "renderer" for the tab. Take a look at JTabbedPane.setTabComponentAt(...) for more information.

The basic idea is to supply a component that will be laid out on the tab.

I typically create a JPanel, onto which I add a JLabel (for the title) and, depending on what I want to display, some kind of control that acts as the close action.

tabPane.addTab(title, tabBody); int index = tabPane.indexOfTab(title); JPanel pnlTab = new JPanel(new GridBagLayout()); pnlTab.setOpaque(false); JLabel lblTitle = new JLabel(title); JButton btnClose = new JButton("x");  GridBagConstraints gbc = new GridBagConstraints(); gbc.gridx = 0; gbc.gridy = 0; gbc.weightx = 1;  pnlTab.add(lblTitle, gbc);  gbc.gridx++; gbc.weightx = 0; pnlTab.add(btnClose, gbc);  tabPane.setTabComponentAt(index, pnlTab);  btnClose.addActionListener(myCloseActionHandler); 

Now somewhere else, I establish the action handler...

public class MyCloseActionHandler implements ActionListener {      public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent evt) {          Component selected = tabPane.getSelectedComponent();         if (selected != null) {              tabPane.remove(selected);             // It would probably be worthwhile getting the source             // casting it back to a JButton and removing             // the action handler reference ;)          }      }  } 

Now, you just as easily use any component you like and attach a mouse listener to it and monitor the mouse clicks...

Updated

The above example will only remove the currently active tab, there are a couple of ways to fix this.

The best is to probably provide some means for the action to find the tab it's associated with...

public class MyCloseActionHandler implements ActionListener {      private String tabName;      public MyCloseActionHandler(String tabName) {         this.tabName = tabName;     }      public String getTabName() {         return tabName;     }      public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent evt) {          int index = tabPane.indexOfTab(getTabName());         if (index >= 0) {              tabPane.removeTabAt(index);             // It would probably be worthwhile getting the source             // casting it back to a JButton and removing             // the action handler reference ;)          }      }  }    

This uses the name of tab (as used with JTabbedPane#addTab) to find and then remove the tab and its associated component...

Answer 2

I found a tab example (from the java site) that appears to do that, at least in theirs. (Though I thought, when I tried it in the past, that it also closed the currently selected tab, though it works properly when you run their example, though I think when I updated it to work on a tabbed java notepad, it was closing the currently selected tab, though maybe I did it wrong.

http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/displayCode.html?code=http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/uiswing/examples/components/TabComponentsDemoProject/src/components/ButtonTabComponent.java

Yes, my thing is working now! This WILL work for the actual tab, rather than the currently selected tab!

Answer 3

Hopefully you have got the answer to your question. I want to give a link that was very useful for me.

JTabbedPane with a close button

Here is some code as well.

public static void createAndShowGUI()
{
    JFrame frame = new JFrame("Tabs");
    frame.setMinimumSize(new Dimension(500, 200));
    frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
    JTabbedPane tabbedPane = new JTabbedPane();

    JPanel panel = new JPanel();
    panel.setOpaque(false);
    tabbedPane.add(panel);
    tabbedPane.setTabComponentAt(tabbedPane.indexOfComponent(panel), getTitlePanel(tabbedPane, panel, "Tab1"));

    JPanel panel1 = new JPanel();
    panel1.setOpaque(false);
    tabbedPane.add(panel1);
    tabbedPane.setTabComponentAt(tabbedPane.indexOfComponent(panel1), getTitlePanel(tabbedPane, panel1, "Tab2"));

    JPanel panel2 = new JPanel();
    panel2.setOpaque(false);
    tabbedPane.add(panel2);
    tabbedPane.setTabComponentAt(tabbedPane.indexOfComponent(panel2), getTitlePanel(tabbedPane, panel2, "Tab3"));

    JPanel panel3 = new JPanel();
    panel3.setOpaque(false);
    tabbedPane.add(panel3);
    tabbedPane.setTabComponentAt(tabbedPane.indexOfComponent(panel3), getTitlePanel(tabbedPane, panel3, "Tab4"));

    frame.add(tabbedPane);

    // Display the window.
    frame.pack();
    frame.setVisible(true);
}