How to turn off automatic editing of JTable

I’ve got really tired of one JTable feature: you press any button and it starts editing current cell. For instance, your application is setup to save on “Control+S”, but when the table is focused the table intercepts your shortcut and starts editing a cell instead. To fix this go to JTable.processKeyBinding and find the hardcoded flag there JTable.autoStartsEdit (how I love these fckng hidden Swing flags). Now let’s put it to work.

       table.putClientProperty("JTable.autoStartsEdit", Boolean.FALSE);

All your shortcuts are in your hands :)

After you have done this the table will only start editing if you press F2. If you wish to change that just do the following:

        Action action = table.getActionMap().get("startEditing");
        if (action != null)
        {
            table.getInputMap().put(KeyStroke.getKeyStroke("mykey"),
                    "startEditing");
        }

Where the hack did I get that startEditing? Look into the BasicTableUI, there all the actions for tables are dscribed. Unfortunatelly in a hidden - private manner.

First published on the old anydoby.com blog on 2009-06-04.