How to change view of object in table cell? - JavaFx

Question

I have a column of LocalDateTime in my TableView :

column_AddDate = new TableColumn<MyTableItem, LocalDateTime>(TITLE_ADD_DATE)

But result - 2016-02-05T12:26:20.506 - is not so pretty as for me. I want to store and sort table data using rules of LocalDateTime class, but show it with custom format. For example:

formatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm");
formattedDateTime = dateTime.format(formatter); // "2016-02-05 12:26"

First, that I've tryed, is to write custom class DateTimeForTable extends LocalDateTime and override toString() method, but LocalDateTime is final.

So, I think, solution is in using setCellValueFactory() method and similar, but I'm not skilled in this.

Please tell me, how to realize this feature.

Answer 1

To change the way the data is presented, rather than the data itself, you should use a cellFactory . (I assume you already have a cellValueFactory installed, else you would not see any data at all. Note the cellFactory is in addition to the cellValueFactory , it does not replace it.)

DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm");
column_AddDate.setCellFactory(tc -> new TableCell<MyTableItem, LocalDateTime>() {
    @Override
    protected void updateItem(LocalDateTime item, boolean empty) {
        super.updateItem(item, empty);
        setText(empty ? null : formatter.format(item));
    }
});