Scroll JScrollPane to bottom

After many hours of attempting to find an answer other than one using the scrollRectToVisible() method, I've succeeded. I've found that if you use the following code after you output text to the text area in the scrollpane, it will automatically focus on the bottom of the text area.

textArea.setCaretPosition(textArea.getDocument().getLength());

So, at least for me, my print method looks like this

public void printMessage(String message)
{
    textArea.append(message + endL);
    textArea.setCaretPosition(textArea.getDocument().getLength());
}

Instead of setViewPosition(), I usually use scrollRectToVisible(), described in How to Use Scroll Panes. You could use the result of an appropriate label's getBounds() for the required Rectangle.

Addendum: @Matt notes in another answer, "If you use the following code after you output text to the text area in the scrollpane, it will automatically focus on the bottom of the text area."

In the particular case of a JTextComponent, also consider using the setUpdatePolicy() method of DefaultCaret to ALWAYS_UPDATE, illustrated here.

scrollPane.getVerticalScrollBar().addAdjustmentListener(new AdjustmentListener() {  
    public void adjustmentValueChanged(AdjustmentEvent e) {  
        e.getAdjustable().setValue(e.getAdjustable().getMaximum());  
    }
});

JScrollBar vertical = scrollPane.getVerticalScrollBar();
vertical.setValue( vertical.getMaximum() );