How to prevent JTable from returning to the first row when Tab is pressed?

Question

How can I disable JTable's default behaviour of returning to the first row, when tab key is pressed in the last cell of the table? Instead the current cell should keep its focus.

Answer 1

The short answer: find the action that's bound to the Tab, wrap it into a custom action that delegates to the original only if not in the last cell and replace the original action with your custom implemenation.

In code:

KeyStroke keyStroke = KeyStroke.getKeyStroke("TAB");
Object actionKey = table.getInputMap(JComponent.WHEN_ANCESTOR_OF_FOCUSED_COMPONENT)
        .get(keyStroke );
final Action action = table.getActionMap().get(actionKey);
Action wrapper = new AbstractAction() {

    @Override
    public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
        JTable table = (JTable) e.getSource();
        int lastRow = table.getRowCount() - 1;
        int lastColumn = table.getColumnCount() -1;
        if (table.getSelectionModel().getLeadSelectionIndex() == lastRow 
                && table.getColumnModel().getSelectionModel()
                        .getLeadSelectionIndex() == lastColumn) {
              return;
        }
        action.actionPerformed(e);
    }

};
table.getActionMap().put(actionKey, wrapper);