JTable column-spanning headers

Question

It there a neat way of creating an equivalent of the HTML colspan effect in JTables, particularly in the headers?
I want to produce a table with headers divided into major and minor categories.
I guess I can write my own extension of JTableHeader, but that's going to get messy.

Answer 1

For the benefit of anyone searching for a solution.
I've found a way of doing this that isn't too much hastle. I create a secondary DefaultTableColumnModel and add columns initialised to the combined width of the groups of columns in the table's TableColumnMode which the more generic headers corespond to. Column reordering is disabled on both models and width changes on the extra one.
Based on this I create a JTableHeader component which I juxtapose with the table and main header using a Box.
I add a TableColumnModelListener to the original ColumnModel. the columnMarginsChanged method causes all the widths in the secondary column model to be recalculated from the original.
The only problem I've had is to persuade the new JColumnHeader to addopt a sensible size. I've had to set both minimum and maximum dimensions before the display will layout properly.
Haven't tried this with a JScrollPane yet but you should be able to bolt the two headers together and stick them in the header slot of the scrollpane.