Design Thoughts - Protected vs Private

1) if you didn't design it to be extended, i,e., you didn't design it to be abstract, then all class attribute should be private. Sometimes I would create a publicly accessible class and think to myself... "self, let's make the private members protected in case someone needs to extend upon this class in the future."... well, I have now come to realize that that is a bad design choice. It breaks encapsulation. I now think that if a class is intended to be extended then the class itself should be abstract and its members (that need to be available to subclasses) obviously be protected. A class should be designed to be extended, if it's not designed to be extended then its members should be private (when there is no obvious choice but to make them private, of course.) Just a thought...

SortableJTableModel

Here is a code example for a sortable JTableModel. In the future I intend to build upon it and design a simple framework.
This was re-factored from a work implementation because the code was coupled with a certain object that seems to be pervasive. Anyway's here is the result.

import java.awt.Point;
import java.awt.event.MouseAdapter;
import java.awt.event.MouseEvent;
import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.Comparator;
import java.util.Vector;

import javax.swing.JTable;
import javax.swing.table.DefaultTableColumnModel;
import javax.swing.table.DefaultTableModel;
import javax.swing.table.JTableHeader;
import javax.swing.table.TableCellRenderer;
import javax.swing.table.TableColumn;

public class SortableJTableModel extends DefaultTableModel implements SortableTableModel {
 private static class Compare implements Comparator {
  int sortKey;
  int sortOrder;

  Compare(int sortKey, int sortOrder) {
   this.sortKey = sortKey;
   this.sortOrder = sortOrder;
  }

  public int compare(Object o1, Object o2) {
   Vector v1 = (Vector) o1;
   Vector v2 = (Vector) o2;
   Comparable s1 = (Comparable) v1.get(sortKey);
   Comparable s2 = (Comparable) v2.get(sortKey);
   int ans = s1.compareTo(s2);
   if (sortOrder==DESCENDING) {
    ans *= -1;
   }
   return (ans);
  }

  public boolean equals(Object obj) {
   return (false);
  }
 } 
// private class HeaderMouseAdapter extends MouseAdapter {
//  public void mousePressed(MouseEvent e) {
//   Point mousePoint = new Point(e.getX(), e.getY());
//   selectedHeaderColumn = header.columnAtPoint(mousePoint);
//   DefaultTableColumnModel cmodel = (DefaultTableColumnModel) table.getColumnModel();
//   backupTableColumnAttr(cmodel);
//
//   clickCount++;
//   boolean reverseOrder = false;
//   if(clickCount>0 && (clickCount % 2) == 0) {
//    sort(new int[] {selectedHeaderColumn}, DESCENDING);
//   }
//   else {
//    sort(new int[] {selectedHeaderColumn}, ASCENDING);
//   }
//   restoreTableColumnAttr(cmodel);
//  }
//
//  void backupTableColumnAttr(DefaultTableColumnModel cmodel) {   
//   for (int i = 0; i < cmodel.getColumnCount(); i++) {
//    TableColumn column = cmodel.getColumn(i);
//    minWidth[i] = column.getWidth();
//    cellRenderer[i] = column.getCellRenderer();
//    headerRenderer[i] = column.getHeaderRenderer();
//   }
//  }
//
//  void restoreTableColumnAttr(DefaultTableColumnModel cmodel) {
//   for (int i = 0; i < cmodel.getColumnCount(); i++) {
//    TableColumn column = cmodel.getColumn(i);
//    column.setMinWidth(minWidth[i]);
//    column.setCellRenderer(cellRenderer[i]);
//    column.setHeaderRenderer(headerRenderer[i]);
//   }
//  }
// }
 private int currentSortColumn = -1;
 private int currentSortDirection = NOT_SORTED;
 private JTable table;
 private JTableHeader header;
 private Vector columnNames;
 private int selectedHeaderColumn;
 private int[] minWidth;
 private TableCellRenderer[] cellRenderer;
 private TableCellRenderer[] headerRenderer;
 private int clickCount = 0;

 public SortableJTableModel(JTable table, String[] columnNames, int rowCount) {
  this(table, DefaultTableModel.convertToVector(columnNames), rowCount);
 }
 public SortableJTableModel(JTable table, Vector columnNames, int rowCount) {
  super(columnNames, rowCount);
  this.table = table;
  this.columnNames = columnNames;  
  dataVector = ((DefaultTableModel) table.getModel()).getDataVector();
  header = table.getTableHeader();
  header.setReorderingAllowed(false);
  //header.addMouseListener(new HeaderMouseAdapter());
  minWidth = new int[columnNames.size()];
  cellRenderer = new TableCellRenderer[columnNames.size()];
  headerRenderer = new TableCellRenderer[columnNames.size()];
 } 

 

 public void setCurrentSortColumn(int column, int direction) {
  if (column < 0 || column >= getColumnCount()) {
   throw new IllegalArgumentException("column " + column + " is outside column numbers");
  }
  if (direction != ASCENDING && direction != DESCENDING) {
   throw new IllegalArgumentException("direction " + direction + " is not a valid sort direction");
  }
  currentSortColumn = column;
  currentSortDirection = direction;
 }

 public int getCurrentSortDirection(int column) {
  return (currentSortColumn != column) ? NOT_SORTED : currentSortDirection;
 }

 public int getCurrentSortColumn() {
  return currentSortColumn;
 }

 public int getRowCount() {
  return dataVector.size();
 }

 public String getColumnNameNoNewLine(int column) {
  String hvalue = (String) columnNames.get(column);
  return hvalue.replace('\n', ' ');
 }
 public void sort(int sortColumns[], int direction) {
  DefaultTableColumnModel cmodel = (DefaultTableColumnModel) table.getColumnModel();
  backupTableColumnAttr(cmodel);
  Object[] array = dataVector.toArray();
  Arrays.sort(array, new Compare(sortColumns[0], direction));
  dataVector = DefaultTableModel.convertToVector(array);
  setDataVector(dataVector, columnNames);
  restoreTableColumnAttr(cmodel);
 }
 void backupTableColumnAttr(DefaultTableColumnModel cmodel) {   
  for (int i = 0; i < cmodel.getColumnCount(); i++) {
   TableColumn column = cmodel.getColumn(i);
   minWidth[i] = column.getWidth();
   cellRenderer[i] = column.getCellRenderer();
   headerRenderer[i] = column.getHeaderRenderer();
  }
 }

 void restoreTableColumnAttr(DefaultTableColumnModel cmodel) {
  for (int i = 0; i < cmodel.getColumnCount(); i++) {
   TableColumn column = cmodel.getColumn(i);
   column.setMinWidth(minWidth[i]);
   column.setCellRenderer(cellRenderer[i]);
   column.setHeaderRenderer(headerRenderer[i]);
  }
 }
// void sort(boolean reverseOrder) {
//  Object[] array = dataVector.toArray();
//  Arrays.sort(array, new Compare(selectedHeaderColumn, reverseOrder));
//  dataVector = DefaultTableModel.convertToVector(array);
//  setDataVector(dataVector, columnNames);
// }
}

Windows XP and Default Icons Not Displaying

Ever have a problem with one or more icons not displaying properly?
For instance, is your 'My Computer' icon displaying the 'default' icon instead of the usual 'My Computer' icon?
Or maybe some of your 'start menu' icons are showing the default icon instead of the proper icon?
Well I had this problem recently and the cause resulted from switching between two different video cards. I was having various issues with the cards, you know - stupid driver issues (?)... well, there just so happens to be an "icon cache" that get's created by Windows XP. This cache somehow became corrupted. I do not know how, but here is how to fix it:

Delete the cache.
Swith your desktop color depth between settings - this should create a new cache.
Look at your icons. Are the displaying properly now?

...good.

Perhaps later I'll fill in some more details. But, I just wanted to jot this down...quickly. Lest I forget.

Google is your friend!

...and so it begins.

These blogs will serve as recordings of the culmination and fulfillment of my lifelong passion to the study and mastering of the Java technology and its advancement in the software industry and will delve into a diverse range of topics from basic fundamentals to advanced architecture and design. Along the way we may meet various other characters or roles on the software stage that just might not be Java specific but is related. The software architect must have more that just one tool available. The architect will utilize a toolbox full of diverse tools of which to design and build in an object oriented landscape. Please join me as I learn and share knowledge and understanding in these Java chronicles.

- Troy