How do I display a JComboBox with icons and text?

You can achieve that by creating a custom ListCellRenderer. Easiest is to subclass DefaultListCellRenderer and override the getListCellRendererComponent() method to add the appropriate icon.

That just leaves how to determine which icon to use for a given combo item value. One solution to this is to provide the renderer with a set of mappings containing what icon to use for which value.

import java.awt.Component;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;

import javax.swing.DefaultListCellRenderer;
import javax.swing.Icon;
import javax.swing.JComboBox;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JList;
import javax.swing.plaf.metal.MetalIconFactory;

public class IconListRenderer
extends DefaultListCellRenderer {

private Map icons = null;

public IconListRenderer(Map icons) {
this.icons = icons;
}

@Override
public Component getListCellRendererComponent(
JList list, Object value, int index,
boolean isSelected, boolean cellHasFocus) {

// Get the renderer component from parent class

JLabel label =
(JLabel) super.getListCellRendererComponent(list,
value, index, isSelected, cellHasFocus);

// Get icon to use for the list item value

Icon icon = icons.get(value);

// Set icon to display for value

label.setIcon(icon);
return label;
}

/**
* @param args
*/
public static void main(String[] args) {

// setup mappings for which icon to use for each value

Map icons = new HashMap();
icons.put("details",
MetalIconFactory.getFileChooserDetailViewIcon());
icons.put("folder",
MetalIconFactory.getTreeFolderIcon());
icons.put("computer",
MetalIconFactory.getTreeComputerIcon());

JFrame frame = new JFrame("Icon List");
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(
JFrame.DISPOSE_ON_CLOSE);

// create a list with some test data

JComboBox combo = new JComboBox(
new Object[] {
"details", "computer", "folder", "computer"});

// create a cell renderer to add the appropriate icon

combo.setRenderer(new IconListRenderer(icons));
frame.add(combo);
frame.pack();
frame.setVisible(true);
}

}