SWT: A Developer's Notebook

Adding Items to a List

You can use the setItems() method to add items to a list with only a single method call. This keeps code clutter to a minimum and makes for cleaner implementation.

How do I do that?

To populate the list with only a single method call, you must first create an array of String objects that hold the items to be added:

String items[] = {"Item One", "Item Two", "Item Three", 
   "Item Four", "Item Five"};

You then call the setItems( ) method, passing it the String array:

l.setItems(items);

Changing ListExample to use this approach will result in a window identical to Figure 7-1, as shown in Example 7-2.

Example 7-2. Using setItems( ) to populate a list

import org.eclipse.swt.SWT;
import org.eclipse.swt.graphics.Image;
import org.eclipse.swt.widgets.*;

public class ListExample {    
    Display d;
    Shell s;
    ListExample( )    {
        d = new Display( );
        s = new Shell(d);
        s.setSize(250,250);
        s.setImage(new Image(d, "c:\\icons\\JavaCup.ico"));
        s.setText("A List Example");
        String items[] = {"Item One", "Item Two", "Item Three", "Item Four", 
                        "Item Five"};
        final List l = new List(s, SWT.SINGLE | SWT.BORDER);
        l.setBounds(50, 50, 75, 75);
        l.setItems(items);
        s.open( );
        while(!s.isDisposed( )){
            if(!d.readAndDispatch( ))
                d.sleep( );
        }
        d.dispose( );
    }
}

If you have large lists, this method will result in code that is more readable than will using an add( ) call for each item.