---
title: Editor Components
---
<!-- Copyright 2000-2020 JetBrains s.r.o. and other contributors. Use of this source code is governed by the Apache 2.0 license that can be found in the LICENSE file. -->

## EditorTextField

Compared to
[Swing `JTextArea`](https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/javax/swing/JTextArea.html), the
*IntelliJ Platform's* editor component has a ton of advantages: syntax highlighting support, code completion, code folding and much more.
*IntelliJ Platform* editors are normally displayed in editor tabs, but they can be embedded in dialogs or tool windows, too.
This is enabled by the
[`EditorTextField`](upsource:///platform/platform-impl/src/com/intellij/ui/EditorTextField.java)
component.

When creating an
[`EditorTextField`](upsource:///platform/platform-impl/src/com/intellij/ui/EditorTextField.java),
you can specify the following attributes:

*  The file type according to which the text in the text field is parsed;

*  Whether the text field is read-only or editable;

*  Whether the text field is single-line or multiline.

A common use case for
[`EditorTextField`](upsource:///platform/platform-impl/src/com/intellij/ui/EditorTextField.java)
is entering the name of a Java class or package.
This can be accomplished with the following steps:

*  Use
   [`JavaCodeFragmentFactory.getInstance().createReferenceCodeFragment()`](upsource:///java/java-psi-api/src/com/intellij/psi/JavaCodeFragmentFactory.java)
   to create a code fragment representing the class or package name;

*  Call
   [`PsiDocumentManager.getInstance().getDocument()`](upsource:///platform/core-api/src/com/intellij/psi/PsiDocumentManager.java)
   to get the document corresponding to the code fragment;

*  Pass the returned document to the
   [`EditorTextField`](upsource:///platform/platform-impl/src/com/intellij/ui/EditorTextField.java)
   constructor or its `setDocument()` method.

E.g.:

```java
PsiFile psiFile = PsiDocumentManager.getInstance(editor.getProject()).getPsiFile(editor.getDocument());
PsiElement element = psiFile.findElementAt(editor.getCaretModel().getOffset());

PsiExpressionCodeFragment code = JavaCodeFragmentFactory.getInstance(editor.getProject()).createExpressionCodeFragment("", element, null, true);
Document document = PsiDocumentManager.getInstance(editor.getProject()).getDocument(code);

EditorTextField myInput = new EditorTextField(document, editor.getProject(), JavaFileType.INSTANCE);
```

**TIPS**: 

* When creating more than one field you need two separate documents. This is accomplished by using separate instances of the `PsiExpressionCodeFragment`

* `setText` no longer works for the input field. However, the `createExpressionCodeFragment` accepts the text fore the field as an argument. As such you can replace the empty string and create a new document in leau of `setText()`

* You can replace instances of `JTextField` in the GUI builder with custom replace using the right click in your IDE. Make sure to use "Custom Create" so you can set the initialization code properly