Tables - The Definitive Guide to Java Swing - page 706

You rarely need to work with the JTableHeader directly. Nevertheless, you can configure some
characteristics of column headers.

Creating a JTableHeader
The JTableHeader has two constructors. One uses the default TableColumnModel , whereas the
other explicitly specifies the model.

public JTableHeader()
JComponent headerComponent = new JTableHeader()

public JTableHeader(TableColumnModel columnModel)
JComponent headerComponent = new JTableHeader(aColumnModel)

JTableHeader Properties
As Table 18-11 shows, the JTableHeader has ten different properties. These properties allow
you to configure what the user can do with a particular column header or how the column
header is shown.

Table 18-11. JTableHeader Properties

Property Name Data Type Access

accessibleContext AccessibleContext Read-only

columnModel TableColumnModel

Read-write bound

draggedColumn TableColumn Read-write

draggedDistance int

Read-write

reorderingAllowed boolean

Read-write bound

resizingAllowed boolean

Read-write bound

resizingColumn TableColumn Read-write

table JTable

Read-write bound

UI TableHeaderUI Read-write

UIClassID String

Read-only

Using Tooltips in Table Headers
By default, if you set tooltip text for the table header, all of the column headers will share the
same tooltip text. To specify a tooltip for a given column, you need to create or get the renderer,
and then set the tooltip for the renderer. This is true for the individual cells, too. Figure 18-12
shows how the results of this customization would appear.