java - Programmatically change the TableView row appearance

Question

After doing a Oracle tutorial about the TableView, I was wondering if there's a way to programmatically apply different CSS style to the selected TableView row. For example, user selects a certain row, clicks the "Highlight" button and the selected row gets brown background, white text fill, etc. I've read the JavaFX tableview colors, Updating TableView row appearance and Background with 2 colors in JavaFX?, but to no avail =/

Here's the source:

import javafx.application.Application;
import javafx.beans.property.SimpleStringProperty;
import javafx.collections.FXCollections;
import javafx.collections.ObservableList;
import javafx.event.ActionEvent;
import javafx.event.EventHandler;
import javafx.geometry.Insets;
import javafx.scene.Group;
import javafx.scene.Scene;
import javafx.scene.control.Button;
import javafx.scene.control.Label;
import javafx.scene.control.TableColumn;
import javafx.scene.control.TableView;
import javafx.scene.control.cell.PropertyValueFactory;
import javafx.scene.layout.VBox;
import javafx.scene.text.Font;
import javafx.stage.Stage;

public class TableViewSample extends Application {

    private TableView<Person> table = new TableView<Person>();
    private final ObservableList<Person> data =
        FXCollections.observableArrayList(
            new Person("Jacob", "Smith", "[email protected]"),
            new Person("Isabella", "Johnson", "[email protected]"),
            new Person("Ethan", "Williams", "[email protected]"),
            new Person("Emma", "Jones", "[email protected]"),
            new Person("Michael", "Brown", "[email protected]")
        );

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        launch(args);
    }

    @Override
    public void start(Stage stage) {
        Scene scene = new Scene(new Group());
        stage.setTitle("Table View Sample");
        stage.setWidth(450);
        stage.setHeight(600);

        final Label label = new Label("Address Book");
        label.setFont(new Font("Arial", 20));

        TableColumn firstNameCol = new TableColumn("First Name");
        firstNameCol.setMinWidth(100);
        firstNameCol.setCellValueFactory(
                new PropertyValueFactory<Person, String>("firstName"));

        TableColumn lastNameCol = new TableColumn("Last Name");
        lastNameCol.setMinWidth(100);
        lastNameCol.setCellValueFactory(
                new PropertyValueFactory<Person, String>("lastName"));

        TableColumn emailCol = new TableColumn("Email");
        emailCol.setMinWidth(200);
        emailCol.setCellValueFactory(
                new PropertyValueFactory<Person, String>("email"));

        table.setItems(data);
        table.getColumns().addAll(firstNameCol, lastNameCol, emailCol);

        final Button btnHighlight = new Button("Highlight selected row");
        btnHighlight.setMaxWidth(Double.MAX_VALUE);
        btnHighlight.setPrefHeight(30);

        btnHighlight.setOnAction(new EventHandler<ActionEvent>(){
            public void handle(ActionEvent e){
                // this is where the CSS should be applied
            }
        });

        final VBox vbox = new VBox();
        vbox.setSpacing(5);
        vbox.setPadding(new Insets(10, 0, 0, 10));
        vbox.getChildren().addAll(label, table, btnHighlight);

        ((Group) scene.getRoot()).getChildren().addAll(vbox);

        stage.setScene(scene);
        stage.show();
    }

    public static class Person {

        private final SimpleStringProperty firstName;
        private final SimpleStringProperty lastName;
        private final SimpleStringProperty email;

        private Person(String fName, String lName, String email) {
            this.firstName = new SimpleStringProperty(fName);
            this.lastName = new SimpleStringProperty(lName);
            this.email = new SimpleStringProperty(email);
        }

        public String getFirstName() {
            return firstName.get();
        }

        public void setFirstName(String fName) {
            firstName.set(fName);
        }

        public String getLastName() {
            return lastName.get();
        }

        public void setLastName(String fName) {
            lastName.set(fName);
        }

        public String getEmail() {
            return email.get();
        }

        public void setEmail(String fName) {
            email.set(fName);
        }
    }
} 

And the application.css from which the "Highlight selected row" button applies the highlightedRow class to the selected table row:

.highlightedRow {
    -fx-background-color: brown;
    -fx-background-insets: 0, 1, 2;
    -fx-background: -fx-accent;
    -fx-text-fill: -fx-selection-bar-text;
}

Edit:

After several hours of trying, the best thing I could come up is this using the code below:

firstNameCol.setCellFactory(new Callback<TableColumn<Person, String>, TableCell<Person, String>>() {
    @Override
    public TableCell<Person, String> call(TableColumn<Person, String> personStringTableColumn) {
        return new TableCell<Person, String>() {
            @Override
            protected void updateItem(String name, boolean empty) {
                super.updateItem(name, empty);
                if (!empty) {
                    if (name.toLowerCase().startsWith("e") || name.toLowerCase().startsWith("i")) {
                        getStyleClass().add("highlightedRow");
                    }
                    setText(name);
                } else {
                    setText("empty");  // for debugging purposes
                }
            }
        };
    }
});

The part I don't really understand is why I can't do that from inside the setOnAction method of the btnHighlight? I also tried refreshing the table afterwards (described here), but it didn't seem to work. Also, my "solution" only works for the firstNameCol column, so does one have to set new cell factory for each column in order to apply a certain style, or is there a smarter solution?

Answer 1

If you don't want the reusability of the solution I posted here, this is really the same thing but using an anonymous inner class for the row factory instead of a standalone class. Perhaps the code is easier to follow as it's all in one place. It's kind of a hybrid between Jonathan's solution and mine, but will automatically update the highlights without forcing it with a sort.

I used a list of integers so it supports multiple selection, but if you don't need that you could obviously just use an IntegerProperty instead.

Here's the row factory:

    final ObservableList<Integer> highlightRows = FXCollections.observableArrayList();

    table.setRowFactory(new Callback<TableView<Person>, TableRow<Person>>() {
        @Override
        public TableRow<Person> call(TableView<Person> tableView) {
            final TableRow<Person> row = new TableRow<Person>() {
                @Override
                protected void updateItem(Person person, boolean empty){
                    super.updateItem(person, empty);
                    if (highlightRows.contains(getIndex())) {
                        if (! getStyleClass().contains("highlightedRow")) {
                            getStyleClass().add("highlightedRow");
                        }
                    } else {
                        getStyleClass().removeAll(Collections.singleton("highlightedRow"));
                    }
                }
            };
            highlightRows.addListener(new ListChangeListener<Integer>() {
                @Override
                public void onChanged(Change<? extends Integer> change) {
                    if (highlightRows.contains(row.getIndex())) {
                        if (! row.getStyleClass().contains("highlightedRow")) {
                            row.getStyleClass().add("highlightedRow");
                        }
                    } else {
                        row.getStyleClass().removeAll(Collections.singleton("highlightedRow"));
                    }
                }
            });
            return row;
        }
    });

And here are what some buttons might look like:

    final Button btnHighlight = new Button("Highlight");
    btnHighlight.disableProperty().bind(Bindings.isEmpty(table.getSelectionModel().getSelectedIndices()));
    btnHighlight.setOnAction(new EventHandler<ActionEvent>() {
        @Override
        public void handle(ActionEvent event) {
            highlightRows.setAll(table.getSelectionModel().getSelectedIndices());
        }
    });

    final Button btnClearHighlight = new Button("Clear Highlights");
    btnClearHighlight.disableProperty().bind(Bindings.isEmpty(highlightRows));
    btnClearHighlight.setOnAction(new EventHandler<ActionEvent>() {
        @Override
        public void handle(ActionEvent event) {
            highlightRows.clear();
        }
    });