Using a button and a textfield in the same cell of a table

Question

I have been struggling with this problem for ages, please someone help...
I am trying to implement a table similar to NetBeans property sheet editor where you have a textfield and a button with "..." in the same table cell. The button is used to invoke a custom editor.
I have most things working, custom renderers, custom editors and such.
However, the focus interactions on the table seem completely screwed. Clicking in the editor causes the cell to switch to editing mode as expected. Pressing cursor down or tab, which should close the editor and move focus to the next cell down does not work - the editor closes but the focus disappears to a completely different component elsewhere on my GUI.
My textfield and button are on a JPanel, and I return that JPanel when getTableCellEditorComponent is called.
If I switch out the JPanel and instead return the textfield, the focus works as normal.
I've even looked at the NetBeans source but I can't work out what their trick is.
Any tips would be gratefully received.
TIA.

Answer 1

Thanks for your time, Jeanette...
Here is a bare-bones example of the problem I'm having. I'm running on JDK1.4 and JDK1.3.1_02.
I've tried some tricks (hacks) with getNextFocusableComponent and requestDefautFocus and such but with no success.
import java.awt.*;
import javax.swing.*;
import javax.swing.table.*;
* This example shows a keyboard/focus navigation problem when using a JPanel
* as a table cell editor. The JPanel contains a textfield and a button.
* Click in the editor to invoke it, and tab-off (or press cursor down). The
* edit ends, but the focus disappears rather than moving to the next cell in
* the table.
* Change the line that returns the panel to return a text field instead, and
* all is well.
public class Test
  public static void main( String[] args )
    new Test();
  public Test()
    JFrame f = new JFrame();
    f.setContentPane( new TablePanel() );
    f.setDefaultCloseOperation( JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE );
    f.setSize( 800, 600 );
    f.setVisible( true );
  class TablePanel extends JPanel
    TablePanel()
      setLayout( new BorderLayout() );
      JTable table = new JTable();
      table.setDefaultEditor( Object.class, new MyEditor() );
      table.setModel(
        new DefaultTableModel(
          new Object[][]
            {null, null},
            {null, null},
            {null, null},
            {null, null}
          new String[] { "A", "B" } ) );
      add( table, BorderLayout.CENTER );
  class MyEditor extends AbstractCellEditor implements TableCellEditor
    private JComponent myEditorPanel;
    private JTextField myTextField;
    MyEditor()
      myEditorPanel = new MyEditorPanel();
      myTextField = new JTextField();
    public Object getCellEditorValue()
      return null;
    public Component getTableCellEditorComponent( JTable table, Object value,
                                                  boolean isSelected,
                                                  int row, int column )
      return myEditorPanel;   // Problems...
//      return myTextField;   // Keyboard and focus as expected
  class MyEditorPanel extends JPanel
    JTextField tf;
    MyEditorPanel()
      setLayout( new BorderLayout() );
      tf = new JTextField();
      add( tf, BorderLayout.CENTER );
      add( new JButton( "edit" ), BorderLayout.EAST );