Module java.desktop
Package java.awt

Class ComponentOrientation

java.lang.Object
java.awt.ComponentOrientation
All Implemented Interfaces:
Serializable
public final class ComponentOrientation extends Object implements Serializable
The ComponentOrientation class encapsulates the language-sensitive orientation that is to be used to order the elements of a component or of text. It is used to reflect the differences in this ordering between Western alphabets, Middle Eastern (such as Hebrew), and Far Eastern (such as Japanese).

Fundamentally, this governs items (such as characters) which are laid out in lines, with the lines then laid out in a block. This also applies to items in a widget: for example, in a check box where the box is positioned relative to the text.

There are four different orientations used in modern languages as in the following table.

 LT          RT          TL          TR
 A B C       C B A       A D G       G D A
 D E F       F E D       B E H       H E B
 G H I       I H G       C F I       I F C

(In the header, the two-letter abbreviation represents the item direction in the first letter, and the line direction in the second. For example, LT means "items left-to-right, lines top-to-bottom", TL means "items top-to-bottom, lines left-to-right", and so on.)

The orientations are:

  • LT - Western Europe (optional for Japanese, Chinese, Korean)
  • RT - Middle East (Arabic, Hebrew)
  • TR - Japanese, Chinese, Korean
  • TL - Mongolian
Components whose view and controller code depends on orientation should use the isLeftToRight() and isHorizontal() methods to determine their behavior. They should not include switch-like code that keys off of the constants, such as: 
 if (orientation == LEFT_TO_RIGHT) {
   ...
 } else if (orientation == RIGHT_TO_LEFT) {
   ...
 } else {
   // Oops
 }
This is unsafe, since more constants may be added in the future and since it is not guaranteed that orientation objects will be unique.
See Also:

  • Field Details

    • LEFT_TO_RIGHT

      public static final ComponentOrientation LEFT_TO_RIGHT
      Items run left to right and lines flow top to bottom Examples: English, French.

    • RIGHT_TO_LEFT

      public static final ComponentOrientation RIGHT_TO_LEFT
      Items run right to left and lines flow top to bottom Examples: Arabic, Hebrew.

    • UNKNOWN

      public static final ComponentOrientation UNKNOWN
      Indicates that a component's orientation has not been set. To preserve the behavior of existing applications, isLeftToRight will return true for this value.

  • Method Details

    • isHorizontal

      public boolean isHorizontal()
      Are lines horizontal? This will return true for horizontal, left-to-right writing systems such as Roman.
      Returns:
      true if this orientation has horizontal lines

    • isLeftToRight

      public boolean isLeftToRight()
      HorizontalLines: Do items run left-to-right?
      Vertical Lines: Do lines run left-to-right?
      This will return true for horizontal, left-to-right writing systems such as Roman.
      Returns:
      true if this orientation is left-to-right

    • getOrientation

      public static ComponentOrientation getOrientation(Locale locale)
      Returns the orientation that is appropriate for the given locale.
      Parameters:
      locale - the specified locale
      Returns:
      the orientation for the locale

    • getOrientation

      @Deprecated public static ComponentOrientation getOrientation(ResourceBundle bdl)
      Deprecated.
      As of J2SE 1.4, use getOrientation(java.util.Locale).
      Returns the orientation appropriate for the given ResourceBundle's localization. Three approaches are tried, in the following order:
      1. Retrieve a ComponentOrientation object from the ResourceBundle using the string "Orientation" as the key.
      2. Use the ResourceBundle.getLocale to determine the bundle's locale, then return the orientation for that locale.
      3. Return the default locale's orientation.
      Parameters:
      bdl - the bundle to use
      Returns:
      the orientation