com.jidesoft.grid
Interface TableCellEditorRenderer

All Superinterfaces:

CellEditor, TableCellEditor, TableCellRenderer

All Known Implementing Classes:

AbstractTableCellEditorRenderer, ButtonTableCellEditorRenderer, HyperlinkTableCellEditorRenderer

public interface TableCellEditorRenderer
extends TableCellRenderer, TableCellEditor

JTable uses cell renderer and cell editor for cell rendering and editing respectively. For the same cell, the renderer component is usually difference from the editor component. For example, most cell renderer components are JLabel. But to edit a cell, JTextField is usually used as the cell editor component. However, in some cases, maybe we want the same component to be used for both the renderer component and editor component. That's why we introduced TableCellEditorRenderer so that you can use the same component for both renderer and editor.

Why do we want the same component use the same component as both editor and renderer? There are at least two reasons.

• To better indicate the cell is editable: JTable renderers the cell using JLabel by default. Editable cells have no visual difference from non-editable cells. Users have to click or double click on the cell to figure out if the cell is editable. So some users will prefer to have a different way to renderer the cell to indicate it is editable. JIDE Grids provides cell style which is one way to make it happen as you can use CellStyle to make the editable cells having white background and non-editable cells gray background. Another way is to this EditorRenderer approach and use editors such as JTextField or JComboBox/ExComboBox as the renderer. If users see a drop down button on the cell, they know the cell will be editable without clicking on it.
• To interactive with mouse events on the cell level: As you know already, JTable paints the cell, not place a real component on the cell. That's why it was called cell renderer. When you moves your mouse over a cell, the mouse events will not interactive with the cell renderer component. For example, if you use as JButton as cell renderer and JButton has a rollover effect, it will not work in JTable. Clicking on the button-based cell renderer will not trigger the button action either. Because of this, it was always a challenge to implement hyperlink type of features in JTable. The cell editor, on the other hand, is a real component that is placed on the cell. So it will interactive with mouse events. This is a hint. To implement hyperlink, we can use this EditorRenderer so that the renderer and the editor use the same hyperlink button. We can add a mouse listener to JTable. When JTable is over a cell, we automatically and silently enter cell editing mode. Since the renderer and the editor are the same, user won't even notice the cell is in editing mode when rollover.

This interface introduced two new methods. The first one is createTableCellEditorRendererComponent. This method should always create a new component. It should create the component and doesn't set the value to the component as we also have configureTableCellEditorRendererComponent that should set the value and do more customization if needed, i.e. add a listener. Please make sure you check the component first so that you don't add the same listener multiple times. This method could be called multiple times.

See Also:

AbstractTableCellEditorRenderer, RolloverTableUtils

Method Summary

void	configureTableCellEditorRendererComponent(JTable table, Component editorRendererComponent, boolean forRenderer, Object value, boolean isSelected, boolean hasFocus, int row, int column)
Component	createTableCellEditorRendererComponent(JTable table, int row, int column)

Methods inherited from interface javax.swing.table.TableCellRenderer

getTableCellRendererComponent

Methods inherited from interface javax.swing.table.TableCellEditor

getTableCellEditorComponent

Methods inherited from interface javax.swing.CellEditor

addCellEditorListener, cancelCellEditing, getCellEditorValue, isCellEditable, removeCellEditorListener, shouldSelectCell, stopCellEditing

Method Detail

createTableCellEditorRendererComponent

Component createTableCellEditorRendererComponent(JTable table,
                                                 int row,
                                                 int column)

Parameters:

table - the JTable that is asking the renderer to draw; can be null

row - the row index of the cell being drawn.

column - the column index of the cell being drawn

Returns:

the component for both rendering and editing.

configureTableCellEditorRendererComponent

void configureTableCellEditorRendererComponent(JTable table,
                                               Component editorRendererComponent,
                                               boolean forRenderer,
                                               Object value,
                                               boolean isSelected,
                                               boolean hasFocus,
                                               int row,
                                               int column)

Parameters:

editorRendererComponent - the component that was created by createTableCellEditorRendererComponent.

table - the JTable that is asking the renderer to draw; can be null

forRenderer - true if this component is created for rendering purpose. False if it is for editing purpose.

value - the value of the cell to be rendered. It is up to the specific renderer to interpret and draw the value. For example, if value is the string "true", it could be rendered as a string or it could be rendered as a check box that is checked. null is a valid value

isSelected - true if the cell is to be rendered with the selection highlighted; otherwise false

hasFocus - whether the cell has focus. This parameter should always be true for editing purpose but could be true or false for rendering purpose.

row - the row index of the cell being drawn.

column - the column index of the cell being drawn