Best practices about JTables.

Question

Hi,
I'm programming in Java since 5 months ago. Now I'm developing an application that uses tables to present information from a database. This is my first time handling tables in Java. I've read Sun's Swing tutorial about JTable, and several information on other websites, but they limit to table's syntax and not in best practices.
So I decided what I think is a proper way to handle data from a table, but I'm not sure that is the best way.Let me tell you the general steps I'm going through:
1) I query employee data from Java DB (using EclipseLink JPA), and load it in an ArrayList.
2) I use this list to create the JTable, prior transformation to an Object[][] and feeding this into a custom TableModel.
3) From now on, if I need to search an object on the table, I search it on the list and then with the resulting index, I get it from the table. This is possible because I keep the same row order on the table and on the list.
4) If I need to insert an item on the table, I do it also on the list, and so forth if I'd need to remove or modify an element.
Is the technique I'm using a best practice? I'm not sure that having to keep synchronized the table with the list is the better way to handle this, but I don't know how I'd deal just with the table, for instance to efficiently search an item or to sort the table, without doing that first on a list.
Are there any best practices in dealing with tables?
Thank you!
Francisco.

Answer 1

Hi Joachim,
What I'm doing now is extending DefaultTableModel instead of implementing AbstractTableModel. This is to save implementing methods I don't need and because I inherit methods like addRow from DefaultTableModel. Let me paste the private class:
protected class MyTableModel extends DefaultTableModel {
        private Object[][] datos;
        public MyTableModel(Object[][] datos, Object[] nombreColumnas) {
            super(datos, nombreColumnas);
            this.datos = datos;
        @Override
        public boolean isCellEditable(int fila, int columna) {
            return false;
        @Override
        public Class getColumnClass(int col) {
            return getValueAt(0, col).getClass();
    }What you are suggesting me, if I well understood, is to register MyTableModel as a ListSelectionListener, so changes on the List will be observed by the table? In that case, if I add, change or remove an element from the list, I could add, change or remove that element from the table.
Another question: is it possible to only use the list to create the table, but then managing everything just with the table, without using a list?
Thanks.
Francisco.