Best books about JAVA programming:

• Head First JAVA, Second Editon
• Effective Java Programming Language Guide
• Professional Java, JDK 5 Edition
• Ivor Horton's Beginning Java 2, JDK 5 Edition

JAVA JTable Shaded Row

This applet shows how to change color in selected row. Through overriding the prepareRenderer() method in JTable, it should be easy to change any cell's color. Before displaying the cell, the table calls this method for every cell. The override should call the superclass and retrieve the prepared component. It can then modify the background and foreground colors to achieve any desired pattern of shaded rows and columns.

You might be also interested in the example: changing any cell color.

import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import javax.swing.*;
import java.util.*;
import javax.swing.table.*;

public class shadedJtable extends JApplet
{
public static void main(String[] args)
{
shadedJtable sj=new shadedJtable();
sj.init();
}
public void init()
{
// This table shades every other row yellow
Object[][] data={{"data","data1","xxx","aa"},{"test","test2","yyy","bb"},{"1","2","124","cc"}};
Object[] names={"c1","c2","c3","c4"};
mytable table=new mytable(data,names);

JScrollPane sp=new JScrollPane(table);
getContentPane().add(sp);
}

class mytable extends JTable
{
public mytable(Object[][] data,Object[] name)
{
super(data,name);
}
public Component prepareRenderer(TableCellRenderer renderer,
int rowIndex, int vColIndex) {
Component c = super.prepareRenderer(renderer, rowIndex, vColIndex);

//if selected row, mark green
if (isCellSelected(rowIndex, vColIndex)) {
c.setBackground(Color.green);
} else {
// If not shaded, match the table's background
c.setBackground(getBackground());
}

return c;

}
}

}