The JSmartGrid and the JTable

 
• How they are alike:
 
1. They do not contain data, they simply open a view on it in accordance with the Model View Controller pattern used in all Swing^TM components.
2. They present a data model that is structured as a matrix, with a given number of rows and columns. The elementary subdivision of the matrix is the cell, identified by a row and a column.
3. They usually present more data than can be viewed at one time, so they need to be incorporated inside some Viewport that will display only a partial view, and allow scrolling through it.
• How they are different:
 
1. Tables are fundamentally vertical in that the structure is determined in the columns, while the rows contain the data. Grids are basically symmetrical with respect to the vertical and the horizontal orientations.
2. In a grid, cells may also be merged into bigger rectangular arrays, called spans.

• By default, a JSmartGrid does not display headers, even inside a JScrollPane. A JTable is a view on a TableModel which, being vertically-oriented, seems to provide natural column headers. A GridModel does not use these default headers which actually gives you more flexibility to customize your grid according to your specific needs. If your needs do require headers, adding them is very easy:
• See an example of a simple grid with headers.
• See an example of displaying data from a database with headers.
• See an example of displaying data from a table model with headers.
A header is, in fact, a natural implementation of frozen panes and has all the capabilities of an independent JSmartGrid.
• Unlike the JTable, the JSmartGrid does not handle column dragging by default and does not impose a strict data structure, thus there are no swapping features in the data model.  The grid therefore provides a "dragging" API based on cells, rows and columns. See how easy it is with this API to implement the JTable behavior with the GenericGridModel. See also a different version.
• The consequences of the vertical structure of the JTable rendering are the following:
• renderers (and editors) tend to be column-specific and rely on the getColumnClass method provided by models;
• the default (DefaultTableModel) model does not provide a complex definition, so the default, text-oriented renderer is used for all cells, despite of the type of data they may contain.
• The grid has no such expectations thus its default rendering is cell-based. See an example of how Integer and Boolean data are rendered appropriately without the model needing to provide any particular intelligence. This would not be the case if the tableModel where this data resides was to be displayed in a JTable.