My question is: I've an Eclipse RCP table in my view. The table has gridlines Visible and everything is fine. But I want all the cells of first row of the table to be merged as a single row in run-time GUI. How can I achieve this functionality ? Please, I don't expect something like adding a text over the first row obstructing it. If any API level functionality or any clues to do this are welcome.
The swt table is a native widget and does not allow you any span, neither in columns nor in rows. Even OwnerDraw (custom cell rendering) does not support this. The only way I see that could allow you to achieve this kind of hack is the swt table editor which allows you to place controls above cells:
http://www.eclipse.org/swt/snippets/#tableeditor
The table editor tracks the position of single cells and positions controls above them. It hides controls when a cell is not in edit mode, show's them when the cell is in edit mode. You'd have to deactivate this default behavior and make sure the controls are always shown - this should be fairly easy. The more challenging part would be that you'd have to find out how to place the controls above 2 or more (and not a single) cells.
The only swt control I know to support span is the nebula grid. Grid is a custom control (no native widget) and therefore offers far more possibilites.
http://eclipse.org/nebula/widgets/grid/grid.php http://dev.eclipse.org/viewcvs/viewvc.cgi/org.eclipse.swt.nebula/org.eclipse.swt.nebula.snippets/src/org/eclipse/swt/nebula/snippets/grid/GridSnippet2.java?root=Technology_Project&view=co