Problem sorting JTable with custom cell editor

Question

Greetings,
I have created a JTable with a JComboBox as the cell editor for the first column. However, I couldn't simply set the default cell editor for the column to be a JComboBox, since the values within the list were different for each row. So instead, I implemented a custom cell editor that is basically just a hashtable of cell editors that allows you to have a different editor for each row in the table (based on the ideas in the EachRowEditor I've seen in some FAQs - see the code below). I also used a custom table model that is essentially like the JDBCAdapter in the Java examples that populates the table with a query to a database.
The problem comes when I try to sort the table using the TableSorter and TableMap classes recommended in the Java Tutorials on JTables. All of the static (uneditable) columns in the JTable sort fine, but the custom cell editor column doesn't sort at all. I think that the problem is that the hashtable storing the cell editors never gets re-ordered, but I can't see a simple way to do that (how to know the old row index verses the new row index after a sort). I think that I could implement this manually, if I knew the old/new indexes...
Here's the code I use to create the JTable:
// Create the Table Model
modelCRM = new ContactTableModel();
// Create the Table Sorter
sorterCRM = new TableSorter(modelCRM);
// Create the table
tblCRM = new JTable(sorterCRM);
// Add the event listener for the sorter
sorterCRM.addMouseListenerToHeaderInTable(tblCRM);
Then, I populate the column for the custom cell editor like this:
// Add the combo box for editing company
TableColumn matchColumn = getTable().getColumn("Match");
RowCellEditor rowEditor = new RowCellEditor();
// loop through and build the combobox for each row
for (int i = 0; i < getTable().getRowCount(); i++) {
JComboBox cb = new JComboBox();
cb.addItem("New");
//... code to populate the combo box (removed for clarity)
rowEditor.add(i,new DefaultCellEditor(cb, i))); //TF
} // end for
matchColumn.setCellEditor(rowEditor);
Any ideas how to do this, or is there a better way to either sort the JTable or use a combobox with different values for each row? Please let me know if more code would help make this clearer...
Thanks,
Ted
import java.util.*;
import java.awt.*;
import javax.swing.*;
import javax.swing.table.*;
import javax.swing.event.*;
public class RowCellEditor implements TableCellEditor
protected Hashtable editors;
protected TableCellEditor editor, defaultEditor;
public RowCellEditor()
editors = new Hashtable();
defaultEditor = new DefaultCellEditor(new JTextField());
public void add(int row, TableCellEditor editor)
editors.put(new Integer(row), editor);
public Component getTableCellEditorComponent(JTable table,
Object value,
boolean isSelected,
int row,
int column)
editor = (TableCellEditor) editors.get(new Integer(row));
if (editor == null)
editor = defaultEditor;
return editor.getTableCellEditorComponent(table,
value,
isSelected,
row,
column);
public Object getCellEditorValue() {
return editor.getCellEditorValue();
public boolean stopCellEditing() {
return editor.stopCellEditing();
public void cancelCellEditing() {
editor.cancelCellEditing();
public boolean isCellEditable(EventObject anEvent) {
return true; //TF
//return editor.isCellEditable(anEvent);
public void addCellEditorListener(CellEditorListener l) {
editor.addCellEditorListener(l);
public void removeCellEditorListener(CellEditorListener l) {
editor.removeCellEditorListener(l);
public boolean shouldSelectCell(EventObject anEvent) {
return editor.shouldSelectCell(anEvent);
-------------------

Answer 1

Well, I found a solution in another post
(see http://forum.java.sun.com/thread.jsp?forum=57&thread=175984&message=953833#955064 for more details).
Basically, I use the table sorter to translate the row index for the hashtable of my custom cell editors. I did this by adding this method to the sorter:
// This method is used to get the correct row for the custom cell
// editor (after the table has been sorted)
public int translateRow(int sortedRowIndex)
checkModel();
return indexes[sortedRowIndex];
} // end translateRow()
Then, when I create the custom cell editor, I pass in a reference to the sorter so that when the getTableCellEditorComponent() method is called I can translate the row to the newly sorted row before returning the editor from the hashtable.