I currently have JTable in which I wish to allow only row selection
by the user (as per default), however I also wish to allow the user
to click on a table column header item to select (& highlight) the
entire column. (If the user subsequently attempts a selection in the
table it should only allow them to select rows again)

My problem is that is that in order to allow a column to be
selected i need to use:

table.setColumnSelectionAllowed(true);
table.setRowSelectionAllowed(false);

But this now means that the user can ONLY select columns from now
on! Doh!!


In my mouse listener (which listens for clicks on the table header
and identifies the selected columnIdx) I tried this rather unsubtle
approach:

table.setColumnSelectionAllowed(true);
table.setRowSelectionAllowed(false);
table.clearSelection();
table.setColumnSelectionInterval(columnIdx,columnIdx);
table.setColumnSelectionAllowed(false);
table.setRowSelectionAllowed(true);

...but rather predictably this immediately deselected the column!!


I believe a possible solution may be to use:

table.setColumnSelectionAllowed(true);
table.setRowSelectionAllowed(false);
table.clearSelection();
table.setColumnSelectionInterval(columnIdx,columnIdx);

....and then use a mouse listener on the JTable to listen for mouse
clicks (to indicate a new user selection is about to start) and
immediately go:

table.setColumnSelectionAllowed(false);
table.setRowSelectionAllowed(true);


However I'm a bit of a newbie and how this might be implemented is
beyond my current knowledge, plus this approach is probably flawed!