Create different JTable while keeping generics

Question

I have a working program using a Model composed by a list of Item.

public class Model  {
private List<Item>;}

public abstract class Item{}

public class A extends Item{}
public class B extends Item{}
public class C extends Item{}

But now i need to create a view with some action buttons (add,del,edit) with a JTable on the center showing Specific Item (A,B,C). Here is my first problem because each specific item will have a column for one of its field, so i need a different table for each item.

A solution could be to have a cardlayout with one table for each type of item, but it comes a new problem how can my view determine how many type of item there is in the model without using instanceof() ?

Moreover i will have others problems after this one, if i have x jtable in my view how will my view get the model of this table ? i can implements for each item an interface like that :

public interface MyModel{
AbstractTableModel getModel();
}

but i can only give to this function a List, so how each item will fill the data array with only its type of item?

PS : if i go further in my reflexion i have a bonus question, i'm wondering how the listener of my action button can simply know which JTable is currently being modify, should i put the listener in the view for simplicity of access to the cardlayout ?

If something is needed to improve my question, ask for it ! Not sure the question is currently clear.

EDIT : adding SSCCE, this is what i'm aiming but it currently doesn't use items of my program and doesn't implement the TableModel/TableModelListener.

import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;

import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.JScrollPane;
import javax.swing.JTabbedPane;
import javax.swing.JTable;
import javax.swing.event.TableModelEvent;
import javax.swing.event.TableModelListener;


public class View extends JPanel implements TableModelListener{

    private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;
    private JTabbedPane card;

    public View() {
        Object rowData[][] = { { "1", "one", "I" }, { "2", "two", "II" }, { "3", "three", "III" } };
        String columnNames[] = { "#", "English", "Roman" };
        Object rowData2[][] = { { "1", "B" } };
        String columnNames2[] = { "#", "type" };
        setLayout(new BorderLayout());
        JPanel actionbutton = new JPanel();
        JButton but = new JButton("fire");
        but.addActionListener(new ButtonListener());
        actionbutton.add(but);
        add(actionbutton,BorderLayout.SOUTH);
        card = new JTabbedPane();
        //something should determine how many type of object in a List<Item> w/o using instanceof
        //should fill jtable with a specific TableModel for each item type
        JTable card1 = new JTable(rowData,columnNames);
        JTable card2 = new JTable(rowData2,columnNames2);
        card.addTab("Item A",new JScrollPane(card1));
        card.addTab("Item B",new JScrollPane(card2));
        add(card,BorderLayout.CENTER);

    }

    private class ButtonListener implements ActionListener{

        @Override
        public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
             String cmd = e.getActionCommand();
             if ("fire".equals(cmd)) {
                   //do something on the model
             }
        }

    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        JFrame f = new JFrame();
        f.setSize(800, 600);
        f.add(new View());
        f.setVisible(true);
    }

    @Override
    public void tableChanged(TableModelEvent e) {
        //update jtable with the model's modification

    }
}

Answer 1

TableModel supports generic types using Class Literals as Runtime-Type Tokens. Your implementation of getColumnClass() (below) defines the types available to the table's columns, and it defines the selection of any non-default renderers and editors. While DefaultTableModel offers considerable convenience, AbstractTableModel is only slightly more difficult and substantially more flexible. As a concrete example, this EnvTableTest illustrates a table modeled on a Map<String, String>.

@Override
public Class<?> getColumnClass(int columnIndex) {
    // return a token for the specified column
}