How to toggle QTableView column between stretch and resize - pyqt

Question

I'm using PyQt5
I have a QTableView, which has a number of columns with varying size, it can change dynamically.
I want the table to take the maximum space it can (I have the horizontal scroll always on).
I know that setting a column setSectionResizeMode to Stretch would force a column to expand to fill the allocated space for the table, the problem is when this space is smaller than what the table needs, it just trucks the content of the column.
I'm looking to a way to do ResizeToContents is the table is larger than the space it has, or Stretch when it doesn't.
Is there such an option?

Answer 1

I needed to have a specific column to always show it's content, so setting the column resize mode to ResizeToContents would give me that. But I also wanted to stretch the same column if the table didn't fill all the allocated area for it in the widget, for that we could use resize mode = Stretch.
The problem that we don't have an OR option between those two modes. Also Stretch can hide the column content if it's too long.
This is what I was able to do to make this possible, hope it would help anyone.
I inherited from QTableView and added an option to select which column to stretch (self._stretch) and capture the column resize events and force this column to the required width.
class myTableView(QTableView):
# ----------------------------------------------------
def __init__(stretch_column, parent=None):
super().__init__(parent=parent)
self._table_width = 0
self._stretch = stretch_column
self._stretch_col_min_width = 0
# Use standard model:
self.model = QStandardItemModel()
self.setModel(self.model)
# Re-calculate the column width when any column width change!
self.horizontalHeader().sectionResized.connect(self._column_resize)
# ----------------------------------------------------
# ----------------------------------------------------
# Re-calculate the column width when the table size change!
def resizeEvent(self, e):
super().resizeEvent(e)
self._table_width = e.size().width()
self._column_resize()
# ----------------------------------------------------
# ----------------------------------------------------
# Calculate what the minimum width for the stretch column:
# This can be called every time we resize, but it's not recommended
# I called it after I finished filling the table data.
def calculate_column_width(self):
self._stretch_col_min_width = 0
font_metrics = self.fontMetrics()
for row in range(0, self.rowCount()):
if self.isRowHidden(row):
continue
cell_data = self.model.data(self.model.index(row, self._stretch))
cell_width = font_metrics.width(cell_data + " ") # Give it some extra chars because of the cell boarder
self._stretch_col_min_width = max(cell_width, self._stretch_col_min_width)
# ----------------------------------------------------
# ---------------------------------------------------
def _column_resize(self):
# Calculate required minimum width of the column:
# FIXME - it can be called after filling the table data, and be removed from here
self.calculate_column_width()
# Calculate all column width - excluding the stretch column:
total_width = 0
for col in range(0, self.columnCount()):
if col != self._stretch:
total_width += self.columnWidth(col)
# Add vertical header width:
total_width += self._v_header.geometry().width()
# Calculate missing area to fill the parent view:
delta = self._table_width - total_width
# Expand the stretched column to fill the table view - or force it to be the minimum required width:
self.setColumnWidth(self._stretch, max(self._stretch_col_min_width, delta))
# ---------------------------------------------------