I don't want JTable to truncate text with ellipses

Question

Here's my problem: I'm using a JTable and made my own AbstractTableModel. So far so good. When the text is too long, the cell renderer will truncate the text and show ellipses …, but some of my databases registries also have ellipses. Ex: Program Languages I've been studying:

first registry "Visual Basic (2003-2007)"
second registry "C++ (2006-2010)"
third registry "Java (2010-...)"

Means I stopped trying to learn VB in 2007. Stopped C++ in 2010. I'm still learning Java. But when the column is not so large, it will truncate, and sometimes it shows this:

"Visual Basic (2003-..."
"C++ (2006-2010)"
"Java (2010-...)"

The user might get confused, thinking "Visual Basic (2003-..." means "Visual Basic (2003 - ...)" when it should mean "Visual Basic (2003-2007)"

Sorry if I wasn't clear enough, I hope everyone understands, I just want the JTable to truncate the text without the Ellipses.

Answer 1

This answer shows how the ellipses arise; instead of trying to defeat them, the better approach is to add your JTable to a layout that allows the table to adjust as the enclosing Window is resized. In this example, the table fills BorderLayout.Center, the default for JFrame. For a more appealing initial appearance,

• You can override getPreferredScrollableViewportSize() as shown.

• You can use Changing Column Widths as needed.

Addendum: Although I don't recommend it from a usability perspective, you can omit the ellipsis in a custom subclass of DefaultTableCellRenderer that uses a custom LabelUI and overrides layoutCL(), as shown here and here.