Editable ComboBox for JavaFx: Displaying a toString for Selecting Items

Question

I have a ComboBox<Perosn> type Person , in which I added several objects of the Person class,

I used the setCellFactory(Callback) method to display the username in a ComboBox

 combobox.setCellFactory( new Callback<ListView<Person >, ListCell<Person >>() { @Override public ListCell<Person > call(ListView<Person > p) { ListCell cell = new ListCell<Person >() { @Override protected void updateItem(Person item, boolean empty) { super.updateItem(item, empty); if (empty) { setText(""); } else { setText(item.getName()); } } }; return cell; } }); 

And, setButtonCell(ListCell) method to display the name in combobox when selected.

 combobox.setButtonCell( new ListCell<Object>() { @Override protected void updateItem(Person t, boolean bln) { super.updateItem(t, bln); if (bln) { setText(""); } else { setText(t.getName()); } } }); 

This works fine with the normal case, but when I use editable combobox, it fails.

When I write, combobox.setEditable(true); , then when you select an element, the combobox text box (editor) shows the toString() method of the person class.

Normal case:

Editable Case:

Is there any solution for this?

I have a model class,

 public class Person { String name; int age; public String getName() { return name; } public void setName(String name) { this.name = name; } public int getAge() { return age; } public void setAge(int age) { this.age = age; } @Override public String toString() { return "Person{" + "name=" + name + ", age=" + age + '}'; } } 

Answer 1

Here is the answer to my own question, which I found best after many efforts and corrections.

 mainComboBox.setButtonCell( new ListCell<Object>() { @Override protected void updateItem(Object t, boolean bln) { super.updateItem(t, bln); if (bln) { setText(""); } else { setText(getStringField(t)); } } }); mainComboBox.setConverter( new StringConverter() { private Map<String, Object> map = new HashMap<>(); @Override public String toString(Object t) { if (t != null) { String str = getStringField(t); map.put(str, t); return str; } else { return ""; } } @Override public Object fromString(String string) { if (validate && !map.containsKey(string)) { mainComboBox.setValue(null); mainComboBox.getEditor().clear(); return null; } return map.get(string); } }); mainComboBox.setCellFactory( new Callback<ListView<Object>, ListCell<Object>>() { @Override public ListCell<Object> call(ListView<Object> p) { ListCell cell = new ListCell<Object>() { @Override protected void updateItem(Object item, boolean empty) { super.updateItem(item, empty); if (empty) { setText(""); } else { setText(getStringField(item)); } } };return cell; } }); 

And with the required getStringField(Object) function,

 public String getStringField(Object o) { return ((Pesron) o).getName(); } 

Answer 2

You need to set the StringConverter to a ComboBox for this purpose (there is no other way looking at the source code of the ComboBox)

Here is an example:

 import javafx.application.Application; import javafx.scene.Group; import javafx.scene.Scene; import javafx.scene.control.Button; import javafx.scene.control.ComboBox; import javafx.stage.Stage; import javafx.util.StringConverter; import java.util.Arrays; import java.util.List; public class ComboBoxTest extends Application { private ComboBox<Integer> cmb_year = new ComboBox<>(); public static void main(String[] args) { launch(args); } @Override public void start(Stage primaryStage) throws Exception { Group root = new Group(); root.getChildren().add(cmb_year); cmb_year.setPrefWidth(150); Scene scene = new Scene(root, 500, 500); primaryStage.setScene(scene); primaryStage.show(); List<Integer> ints = Arrays.asList(2012, 2013, 2014, 2015); cmb_year.getItems().addAll(ints); cmb_year.setConverter( new StringConverter<Integer>() { @Override public String toString(Integer integer) { if (integer == null) { return ""; } else { return "that a year: " + integer.intValue(); } } @Override public Integer fromString(String s) { try { return Integer.parseInt(s); } catch (NumberFormatException e) { return null; } } }); cmb_year.setPromptText("select year"); cmb_year.setEditable(true); Button distraction = new Button("distraction"); distraction.setLayoutX(100); distraction.setLayoutY(100); root.getChildren().add(distraction); } } 

result: