In this tutorials, we are going to learn about Java Swing JList component. JList is a component used to display a list of objects that allows the user to select one or more items.

Swing JList Example :

In this example, I am going to create a Colors list, and apply the background color by selecting the list item.

package com.onlinetutorialspoint.swing;

import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.FlowLayout;

import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JList;
import javax.swing.JScrollPane;
import javax.swing.ListSelectionModel;
import javax.swing.event.ListSelectionEvent;
import javax.swing.event.ListSelectionListener;

public class JListDemo extends JFrame {
    private JList jList;
    // Creating list items
    private static final String[] listItems = { "BLUE", "BLACK", "CYAN",
            "GREEN", "GRAY", "RED", "WHITE" };
    // Creating colors
    private static final Color[] colors = { Color.BLUE, Color.BLACK,
            Color.CYAN, Color.GREEN, Color.GRAY, Color.RED, Color.WHITE };

    public JListDemo() {
        super("JList Demo");
        setLayout(new FlowLayout());

        jList = new JList(listItems);
        
        // set to single selection mode
        jList.setSelectionMode(ListSelectionModel.SINGLE_SELECTION);
        // limit the visible row count of JList
        
        jList.setVisibleRowCount(4);
        add(new JScrollPane(jList));
        
        jList.addListSelectionListener(new ListSelectionListener() {
            
            @Override
            public void valueChanged(ListSelectionEvent e) {
                getContentPane().setBackground(colors[jList.getSelectedIndex()]);
            }
        });
        
    }
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        JListDemo jListDemo = new JListDemo();
        jListDemo.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        jListDemo.setSize(350, 150);
        jListDemo.setVisible(true);
    }
}

Output :

Selected List Item with Green :

Changed the List Item with Gray:

Happy Learning 🙂