JTabbedPane
Get/Set selected tab in JTabbedPane
With this tutorial we shall show you how to get or set the selected tab in a JTabbedPane component of a Java Desktop Application.
Basically all you have to do for it is to:
- Create a new
JFrame. - Call
frame.getContentPane().setLayout(new GridLayout(1, 1)to set up grid layout for the frame. - Use
JTabbedPane(JTabbedPane.TOP)to get aJTabbedPane. - Use
tabbedPane.getSelectedIndex()to get the index of the selected tab. - Use
tabbedPane.setSelectedIndex()to set the index of the selected tab.
Let’s see the code:
package com.javacodegeeks.snippets.desktop;
import java.awt.GridLayout;
import java.awt.Label;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.JTabbedPane;
public class GetSetSelectedTabInJTabbedPane {
private static void createAndShowGUI() {
// Create and set up the window.
final JFrame frame = new JFrame("Tabbed Pane Example");
// Display the window.
frame.setSize(400, 400);
frame.setVisible(true);
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
// set grid layout for the frame
frame.getContentPane().setLayout(new GridLayout(1, 1));
JTabbedPane tabbedPane = new JTabbedPane(JTabbedPane.TOP);
tabbedPane.addTab("Tab1", makePanel("This is tab 1"));
tabbedPane.addTab("Tab2", makePanel("This is tab 2"));
tabbedPane.addTab("Tab3", makePanel("This is tab 3"));
tabbedPane.addTab("Tab4", makePanel("This is tab 4"));
frame.getContentPane().add(tabbedPane);
// get the currently selected index for this tabbedpane
int selectedIndex = tabbedPane.getSelectedIndex();
System.out.println("Default Index:" + selectedIndex);
// select the last tab
tabbedPane.setSelectedIndex(tabbedPane.getTabCount()-1);
selectedIndex = tabbedPane.getSelectedIndex();
System.out.println("New Index:" + selectedIndex);
}
private static JPanel makePanel(String text) {
JPanel p = new JPanel();
p.add(new Label(text));
p.setLayout(new GridLayout(1, 1));
return p;
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
//Schedule a job for the event-dispatching thread:
//creating and showing this application's GUI.
javax.swing.SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
createAndShowGUI();
}
});
}
}This was an example on how to get and set the selected tab in JTabbedPane component.

