GtkTreeView does not support 'cell' operations

[Kent Schumacher <kent structural-wood com>]

I had been hoping GtkTreeView could be used as a table widget,
but apparently most operations are limited to a row.  A notable
exception to this is the ability to edit a cell.

It seems to me that if there were modes to allow cell selection and
cell dragging/dropping, gtk would be well on it's way to having a
table widget.

Is there some reason cell operations seem to have been ignored?
Much of the TreeView api is explicitly row only.

Looking at the treeview drag-n-drop code, it looks like the drag code
resolves the start of a drag to a cell - in fact it looks quite
easy to modify the drag code to support cell drag.  I haven't looked
at the selection code to see if this could support cell operations.

I guess I'm wondering if there is a way to support cell operations
without modifying code.

If there isn't, is anyone working on cell support for the TreeView?

Thanks,
Kent