I have a few questions related to JTables so bear with me and if you could answer what you know, it would be appriecated.

My GUI has a few components, but 2 main ones.
1. A JList of "Chart" Objects. A "Chart" Object contains String Data Range, String Title, String Left Axis Label, String Bottom Axis Label, String Type, and ArrayList<SeriesInfo> list of series. (Those are obviously not their variable names). A "SeriesInfo" Object contains String Name, Point Start, Point End, String DataLabel, String DataRange, Color SeriesColor, and boolean PrimaryAxis.
2. A JTable with 5 columns. The data for those columns are, 1) String, 2) String, 3) CheckBox, 4) Color Picker/Background Colored, 5) String.

Apart from those, there are 3 JToggleButtons and 3 JTextFields.

How this is going to work is that when the user selects a Chart from the JList, it will update the 3 JToggleButtons, 3 JTextFields, and the JTable. The content of the JTable will be the Chart Object's SeriesInfo objects. So when the user selects a Chart from the JList, the JTable will need to dynamically change row count and add new data. The columns will get their data from the following: 1) SeriesInfo.Name, 2) SeriesInfo.DataRange, 3) SeriesInfo.PrimaryAxis, 4) SeriesInfo.SeriesColor, 5) SeriesInfo.DataLabel.

So, now that you are familiar with my design, here are my JTable questions:
1. How can I make the size of the JTable dynamically? The number of the Rows of the JTable will depend on the the length of the SeriesInfo ArrayList of the Chart Object. My current design makes a statically sized JTable.
2. How can I make the boolean CheckBox an actual CheckBox? At first I just had the true/false value, then I played around on Google and got the CheckBox to show instead of the text, but when you click in the CheckBox is just turns back into text and I get a bunch of errors about parsing the String when you try to click out of it.
3. How can I open a Color Picker Pop-up when the user clicks in a cell in the 4th column? I assume I need an ActionListener of some sorts, but I'm not sure where to go with it.

I think thats everything, I will continue to ask questions as I go.

My current JTable code (which I got from playing around on Google and trying things out will need some major overhaul) is this:

Create a custom TableModel (extend AbstractTableModel or DefaultTableModel) and set the table model to this custom model. Using the custom model will allow you to change the table quite dynamically (see How to Use Tables). Adding a ListSelectionListener to the ListSelectionModel will allow you to listen for selection in the table.

Ok, I could use some help as I go. I have never used TableModels, Table Rendering, or Vectors before.

Vector Question:
How do I go about making 2d Vectors, or is it necessary, or how exactly does this work?

TableModel Question:
In the code from above, it had something to do with Table Rendering. Is that done in the TableModel, or where do I do that?


So based on that Java Tutorials site (in which I think they did a crap job explaining how JTables work), I have attempted to create a makeshift TableModel. How is this looking?:

Ok, so i have currently been able to Dynamically change the number of rows. So that is checked off.

I still need help with:
1. Setting selectable JCheckBox in JTable
2. Opening Color Picker
3. Setting Specific Cell Background Colors (for only the cells with Color Pickers on them).

Any suggestions is apprieciated.

Tables aren't extremely intuitive until you start using them quite a bit.
You may wish to change your model TableMode to avoid naming conflictsl, since (indirectly) it is implementing TableModel.

1) By default checkboxes should appear with a boolean, but I've noticed some buggy looking behavior myself when relying on this. I can't recall exactly how I overcame this, but you may want to try returning the column class in your table model

2) You could implement an action listener
This will return the row and column where the mouse click occurred. Alternatively you may wish to show a JPopUpMenu containing the Color chooser based upon the point location

3) You could implement the TableCellRenderer interface, and override the getCellRenderer function of JTable, returning the custom renderer when needed, and the default (super) renderer otherwise

ActionEvent doesn't have a getPoint() method. You probably meant to illustrate that with a MouseListener and mousePressed(...) or mouseClicked(...)

db

Doh! Thanks for the correction. My brain is running on low today

I actually just used the DefaultTableModel to do what I needed. However I know I'm going to have to create a new Table Model class to get done what I need, and I'm trying to put that off as long as possible.

Ok, so I am not able attach a listener to a specific cell? If possible, some sort of Cell Selection Listener would be best. I am having trouble finding anything like this on Google though.

I'll spend some time playing around with Table Rendering tomorrow at work and get back to you as I run into the inevitable problems.



I also have 1 question about the JList thing. I have attached a listener to react when an item is selected, but it seems to run the listener twice when it activates. This was a problem initially because it attempted to update the TableModel when one had not yet been created (which threw NullPointers at me like crazy) but a few if statements made a messy fix for that. Any suggestions regarding adding Listeners to JLists?

Check out Rob Camick's Table Cell Listener, it may be what you're looking for.

db

Ok, so it can listen for when I change a value, but it doesnt listen for when the cell is selected.

So I played around with creating a TableColumnModelListener instead:

And adding it to my table:

But there is a problem. Just like with the JList, it runs the listener twice. Except this time, I get two different answers. When I click the top left cell, this prints out:
When I click the bottom left cell, this prints out:
When I click the top right cell, this prints out:
When I click the bottom right cell, this prints out:
It does print out the correct answer for the bottom cells, except it does it twice. But I dont know what is going on for the top cells. Lastly, it doesnt appear to be reliable. Sometimes it responds, sometimes it doesnt.