Preserve JTable selection across TableModel change

Question

We\'re seeing JTable selection get cleared when we do a fireTableDataChanged() or fireTableRowsUpdated() from the TableModel.

Answer 1

I had the same issue in an application. In my case the model in the table was a list of objects, where the object properties where mapped to columns. In that case, when the list was modified, I retrieved the selected index and stored the object that was selected before updating the list. After the list is modified and before the table is updated, I would calculate the position of the selected object. If it was still present after the modification, then I would set the selection to the new index.

Just setting the selected index in the table after the modification will not work, because the object may change position in the list.

As a side note, I found that working with GlazedLists makes life much easier when dealing with tables.