I'd look around to find some (3rd party?) components that do what you want. I've had to create custom Swing components for an agenda view where you can book multiple resources, as well as an Excel-like grid that works well with keyboard navigation and so on. I had a terrible time getting them to work nicely because I needed to delve into many of Swing's many intricacies whenever I came upon a problem. Mouse and focus behaviour and a lot of other things can be very difficult to get right, especially for a casual Swing user. I would hope that JavaFX is a bit more future-orientated and smooth out of the box.