Question

I am making a JTable where the first two columns contain strings and the rest of the columns contain icons (specifically, objects of the class ImageIcon). I know how to do either, but how do I mix both in 1 table such that some columns return strings while others return icons?

–EDIT–
explanation for code: data is a 2D string array. For the first two columns, i want them to be displayed as-it-is in the table. For all the rest of the columns, there are only two possible values, “Y” or “N”. Now i want an ImageIcon to be displayed if there is a “Y”, otherwise just leave it blank if there is a “N”.

(in case it helps to know, i am drawing a comparison table where i want a tick mark icon to be displayed if the value is “Y” otherwise just leave the cell empty if the value is “N”)

right now the output is like this:
value of PATH_TO_ICON (“//home//….”) in case of “Y”
“javax.swing.ImageIcon@288e509b” in case of “N”

class MyTableModel extends AbstractTableModel {

    private Object[][] data;
    private String[] headers;

    public MyTableModel(String[][] data, String[] headers) {
        super();
        this.data = data;
        this.headers = headers;
    }

    @Override
    public int getColumnCount() {
        return headers.length;
    }

    @Override
    public int getRowCount() {
        return data.length;
    }

    @Override
    public Object getValueAt(int row, int col) {
        if (col < 2) {
            return data[row][col];
        } else {
            if (data[row][col].equals("Y")) {
                return new ImageIcon(PATH_TO_ICON);
            } else if(data[row][col].equals("N")) {
                return new ImageIcon();
                            } else return null;
        }
    }

    @Override
    public Class<?> getColumnClass(int col) {
        if (col < 2) {
            return String.class;
        } else {
            return ImageIcon.class;
        }
    }
}

Answer 1

Set the column class (for each column) as needed. As mentioned by @mKorbel, see also How to Use Tables – Concepts: Editors and Renderers.