JavaFX Table Cell Formatting

Question

    TableColumn<Event,Date> releaseTime  = new TableColumn<>("Release Time");
    releaseTime.setCellValueFactory(
                new PropertyValueFactory<Event,Date>("releaseTime")
            );

How can I change the format of releaseTime? At the moment it calls a simple toString on the Date object.

Answer 1

I'd recommend using Java generics to create re-usable column formatter that takes any java.text.Format. This cuts down on the amount of boilerplate code...

private class ColumnFormatter<S, T> implements Callback<TableColumn<S, T>, TableCell<S, T>> {
    private Format format;

    public ColumnFormatter(Format format) {
        super();
        this.format = format;
    }
    @Override
    public TableCell<S, T> call(TableColumn<S, T> arg0) {
        return new TableCell<S, T>() {
            @Override
            protected void updateItem(T item, boolean empty) {
                super.updateItem(item, empty);
                if (item == null || empty) {
                    setGraphic(null);
                } else {
                    setGraphic(new Label(format.format(item)));
                }
            }
        };
    }
}

Examples of usage

birthday.setCellFactory(new ColumnFormatter<Person, Date>(new SimpleDateFormat("dd MMM YYYY")));
amplitude.setCellFactory(new ColumnFormatter<Levels, Double>(new DecimalFormat("0.0dB")));