Selecting Non-Continuous Cells in JTable

In JTable, the default selection mode allows only contiguous cell selection. To enable individual, non-continuous cell selection, the following approaches can be considered:

1. CTRL MOUSE_CLICK:

If setSelectionMode(ListSelectionModel.SINGLE_SELECTION) is not set, holding down the CTRL key while clicking on cells allows for multiple non-continuous cell selection.

2. Modified ListSelectionModel:

As ListSelectionModel is shared by both JTable and JList, the following modified ListSelectionModel can be used:

import java.awt.Component;
import java.awt.event.InputEvent;
import java.awt.event.MouseEvent;

import javax.swing.*;

public class NonContSelectionModel extends DefaultListSelectionModel {

    @Override
    protected void processMouseEvent(MouseEvent e) {
        int modifiers = e.getModifiers() | InputEvent.CTRL_MASK;
        MouseEvent myME = new MouseEvent((Component) e.getSource(), e.getID(), e.getWhen(), modifiers, e.getX(),
                e.getY(), e.getXOnScreen(), e.getYOnScreen(), e.getClickCount(), e.isPopupTrigger(), e.getButton());
        super.processMouseEvent(myME);
    }
}

This model can be applied to JTable by using setSelectionModel(new NonContSelectionModel()).

Demonstration:

The following code snippet creates a JTable that allows for non-continuous cell selection using the modified ListSelectionModel:

import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.JScrollPane;
import javax.swing.JTable;
import javax.swing.SwingUtilities;

public class NonContJTableSelection {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                JFrame frame = new JFrame();
                frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);

                JPanel panel = new JPanel();
                String[] columnNames = {"Name", "Age", "Profession"};
                Object[][] data = {
                        {"John Doe", 30, "Software Engineer"},
                        {"Jane Doe", 28, "Doctor"},
                        {"Peter Jones", 45, "Lawyer"}
                };
                JTable table = new JTable(data, columnNames);
                table.setSelectionModel(new NonContSelectionModel());
                JScrollPane scrollPane = new JScrollPane(table);
                panel.add(scrollPane);

                frame.add(panel);
                frame.pack();
                frame.setVisible(true);
            }
        });
    }
}