Custom Renderers in JTreeTable (or extending JTable)?

Question

I am wondering about what the best approach is to display a table in a Swing component. My table will by default have all rows collapsed (occupying a single line), but someone may click on a row to expand it (so it occupies multiple lines and displays more information). Nothing in the table should be editable.
Example:
(collapsed) 1. data     data     data
(expanded) 2. data     data     data
...more data that wouldn't fit on on one line...
... still more data (additional data doesn't have same column format as collapsed rows)...
(collapsed) 3. data     data     dataSo the additional data displayed when a row is expanded aren't conceptually `children' of the data in the collapsed display. I've looked at JTreeTable, but I'm not sure it's right for this purpose, and it seems complicated.
For one thing, I need some of my columns to have custom renderers--for example, renderers that display a button with text or an image instead of just a label. However, it looks like the JTreeTable approach forces you to declare the JTree (extension) as the renderer of everything in a row, so would that prevent me from specifying custom renderers for other columns, or am I misunderstanding?
Another feature I need is to be able to filter out entire rows from the view (so they don't show up at all). I will also want to add custom sort buttons that can apply four different sorts to each column.
Would I be better off using a JTreeTable for this or somehow using custom renderers or otherwise extending an ordinary JTable to make the column larger and display additional information when the user clicks the expand icon?
Also, how do I specify a different renderer for header rows than for other rows?
Message was edited by:
The.Joy.of.Java

Answer 1

Check how editingStopped is being done. For a ComboBox there is no common operation that one can assume means that the user is done with the editing component. By default JTable leaves it active until the mouse clicks somewhere outside it, then does, essentially, fireEditingStopped() to give the cell back to the renderer. Then a second mouse click is required to start a new cell editor.
If you're using ComboBox as a custom editor, you have to decide what event you want to be final and call fireEditingStopped() yourself. For instance, in your TableCellEditor:
    @Override
    public Component getTableCellEditorComponent(final JTable table,
                                                 final Object value,
                                                 final boolean isSelected,
                                                 final int row,
                                                 final int column) {
...             if( editor.supportsCustomEditor() )  {
                    JComboBox c = (JComboBox)editor.getCustomEditor();
                    c.removeActionListener( this );
                    c.addActionListener( this );
                    return c;
    @Override
    public void actionPerformed ( final ActionEvent ev ) {
        else if( "comboBoxChanged".equals( ev.getActionCommand() ) )  {
            fireEditingStopped();
    }The actionEvent is fired when just about anything happens in the ComboBox, including selection of the currently selected item. But unless you have a more specific requirement, it should be good enough.