spinner question

[krillian konstatos]

hi, all!

I have a question about the ListSpinnerModel and how i can use this to display year selections using
java.util.Date and Calendar classes and methods. I have done this using the SpinnerDateModel class
in the YearSpinnerComponent class i have previously used in one of my projects. Now i need to
provide the user with a default value of "N/A" at the startup of the application so that the date value
in the spinner component always start with the forementioned value. Can someone point me in the
right direction so that i can use date selection in a spinner list model or is there any other way to do this
what i am trying to accomplish? maybe i should use another component for this attempt perhaps
a JComboBox would be a better choice? any tip would be great!

import java.util.Calendar;
import java.util.GregorianCalendar;
import javax.swing.JSpinner;
import javax.swing.SpinnerDateModel;
import javax.swing.JFormattedTextField;
import javax.swing.JSpinner.DateEditor;

public class YearSpinnerComponent extends JSpinner {
    protected SpinnerDateModel dateModel;
    protected java.util.Date today;
    protected Calendar cal;
    protected java.util.Date startDate;
    protected java.util.Date endDate;
    protected JSpinner.DateEditor editor;
    protected JFormattedTextField jTextComponent;
    protected GregorianCalendar gc;
    protected int start;
    protected int end;

    public YearSpinnerComponent ()
    {
        initVars();
        populateSpinnerDateModel();
    }

    private void initVars()
    {
        gc = new GregorianCalendar();
        cal = Calendar.getInstance();
        today = cal.getTime();
        dateModel = new SpinnerDateModel();
    }

    private void populateSpinnerDateModel()
    {
        gc.set(Calendar.YEAR, (new Integer(1899)).intValue());
        startDate = gc.getTime();
        dateModel.setValue(today);
        dateModel.setStart(startDate);
        dateModel.setEnd(today);
        dateModel.setCalendarField(Calendar.YEAR);
        super.setModel(dateModel);
        editor = new javax.swing.JSpinner.DateEditor(this, "yyyy");
        super.setEditor(editor);
        jTextComponent = editor.getTextField();
        jTextComponent.setHorizontalAlignment(2);
    }
}

[Darryl Burke]

Would Rob Camick's Combo Box Prompt be useful? Or do you need to allow reselecting "N.A." even after selecting a year?