I would be interested in seeing the code you created to show the selected text. I think it would be a useful addition to G4P to have events when the selected text changes in a GTextField object and an easy way to get the selected text. Unfortunately I am extremely busy at work so it will have to wait to 2011.

I believe there is a simple solution to what you want to do.

When I designed G4P I worked on the assumption that users would like to have colour schemes to give a consistent look to their interface. You can see this being used in the G4P_TextFields example that comes with the library i.e.

1. GComponent.globalColor = GCScheme.getColor(this,  GCScheme.GREEN_SCHEME);
   

Each component has its own localColor scheme which is initilly the same as the global scheme but can be set to have its own colour scheme.

1. txf.localColor= GCScheme.getColor(this,  GCScheme.BLUE_SCHEME);
   

where txf is a GTextField object or in fact any G4P component.

If you want to just change the back colour of the selected text then

1. txf.localColor.txfSelBack = color(255,200,200);
   

would change it to pink. (See GCScheme.java to see other colour attributes you can use in the same way)

Note a single GTextField object will not support multiple selection colours at the same time although as you can see you can change it whenever you want.

BTW you can create your own colour schemes if you want

As you found out GTextField only supports a single text selection. In all the programming languages (that I have used) that support a GUI "text input box" this is the standard behaviour.

If the GTextField has focus then it can have "selected text", when it looses focus the you loose the text selection. This being the case I assume that your code

1. if (textField.getFocusObject() != null) {
2.     textFieldInfo = textField.getFocusObject().toString();
   

is to make sure textField has the focus. If that is the case then you should use this code instead

1. if (textField.hasFocus()) {
2.     textFieldInfo = textField.toString();

The rest of your code is unchanged.

In G4P I use the toString() method to display various info about the components attributes to aid debugging. Generally I remove them from the class before distribute the library but for GTextField I forgot.

The next release of G4P will have a proper method to return the selected text but till then your method works fine.

I am glad you like the commented classes in G4P as I am a firm believer in good documentation, even though like most programmers I find this a tedious business.

" In G4P I use the toString() method to display various info about the components attributes to aid debugging. Generally I remove them from the class before distribute the library but for GTextField I forgot."
I suggest to leave them. They don't hurt size or performance, and can still be useful to end user (debugging).

I agree toString() is a great aid to debugging but more for the class creator rather than the end user who has no control of its implementation. In debugging G4P the various toString methods have been changed time and time again to suit my needs rather than provide information to the end user.

So its true I could have left them in but I did not want the end user to rely on a particular implementation. In this case funkpunk's program is now dependant on parsing the output from GTextField .toString to get the selected txt but the toString implementation will eventually be changed. When I next modify G4P GTextField will be given a method to get the selected text and I will be free to change toString again.

I have just looked at the code because I couldn't remember how the cursor colour was set. In V1.6.4 the cursor colour is the same as the border colour so can be set with

myTextField.localColor.txfBorder = color(r,g,b);

When I created the library I made it the same as the border because it 'looked' right, I didn't think about changing the cursor colour independantly from the rest.

I have just modified the library (V1.6.5) so that you can set the cursor colour independantly of the border just use

myTextField.localColor.txfCursor = color(r,g,b);

You can download this new version from here

I am pleased that you like the library and if you have other requests then post them in this forum although I can't normally promise updates this quickly.