Question

I would like to fire an event that would denote that a given column values have all changed i.e. somewhere in column X, some values changed. How can I do this, since all events either concern cell, row or whole data table…

Answer 1

Looking in AbstractTableModel, it looks like constructing a TableModelEvent explicitly might do the trick:

model.fireTableChanged(new TableModelEvent(model, 0, lastRow, columnIndex,
                       TableModelEvent.UPDATE));

See also the javadoc for TableModelEvent:

/**
 * Depending on the parameters used in the constructors, the TableModelevent
 * can be used to specify the following types of changes: <p>
 *
 * <pre>
 * TableModelEvent(source);              //  The data, ie. all rows changed 
 * TableModelEvent(source, HEADER_ROW);  //  Structure change, reallocate TableColumns
 * TableModelEvent(source, 1);           //  Row 1 changed
 * TableModelEvent(source, 3, 6);        //  Rows 3 to 6 inclusive changed
 * TableModelEvent(source, 2, 2, 6);     //  Cell at (2, 6) changed
 * TableModelEvent(source, 3, 6, ALL_COLUMNS, INSERT); // Rows (3, 6) were inserted
 * TableModelEvent(source, 3, 6, ALL_COLUMNS, DELETE); // Rows (3, 6) were deleted
 * </pre>
 *
 * It is possible to use other combinations of the parameters, not all of them 
 * are meaningful. (...)