Question

So I have an editable Jtable (TreeTable actually) with a custom model. The current setValueAt method needs to be updated to prevent values greater than a certain amount (dependant on the row).

This is easy to prevent (simply don’t set the value if it’s invalid) but what’s the best way to inform the user that the chosen amount was invalid? Popping a dialog from the model seems rather nasty.

Answer 1

Popping a dialog from the model seems rather nasty.

Agreed. Use a custom editor for the column. Maybe something like:

import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import javax.swing.*;
import javax.swing.text.*;
import javax.swing.event.*;
import javax.swing.border.*;
import javax.swing.table.*;

public class TableEdit extends JFrame
{
    TableEdit()
    {
        JTable table = new JTable(5,5);
        table.setPreferredScrollableViewportSize(table.getPreferredSize());

        JScrollPane scrollpane = new JScrollPane(table);
        getContentPane().add(scrollpane);

        //  Use a custom editor

        TableCellEditor fce = new FiveCharacterEditor();
        table.setDefaultEditor(Object.class, fce);
    }

    class FiveCharacterEditor extends DefaultCellEditor
    {
        FiveCharacterEditor()
        {
            super( new JTextField() );
        }

        public boolean stopCellEditing()
        {
        JTable table = (JTable)getComponent().getParent();

            try
            {
                String editingValue = (String)getCellEditorValue();

                if(editingValue.length() != 5)
                {
                    JTextField textField = (JTextField)getComponent();
                    textField.setBorder(new LineBorder(Color.red));
                    textField.selectAll();
                    textField.requestFocusInWindow();

                    JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(
                        null,
                        "Please enter string with 5 letters.",
                        "Alert!",JOptionPane.ERROR_MESSAGE);
                    return false;
                }
            }
            catch(ClassCastException exception)
            {
                return false;
            }

            return super.stopCellEditing();
        }

        public Component getTableCellEditorComponent(
            JTable table, Object value, boolean isSelected, int row, int column)
        {
            Component c = super.getTableCellEditorComponent(
                table, value, isSelected, row, column);
            ((JComponent)c).setBorder(new LineBorder(Color.black));

            return c;
        }

    }

    public static void main(String [] args)
    {
        JFrame frame = new TableEdit();
        frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        frame.pack();
        frame.setLocationRelativeTo( null );
        frame.setVisible(true);
    }
}