[REVIEW REQUEST] Add text property to ComboBox

[Jonathan Giles]

I'm not sure that I agree with this line of thought, but I'm also quite 
likely wrong.

My thinking is that on ComboBox, the text property should exist and be 
of type String, not T. I think this because ComboBox is a specialisation 
of the ComboBoxBase class, which I foresee as being the logical point of 
extension for future ComboBox-esque controls (e.g. Colour Picker). For 
this reason, the ComboBox specialises in showing a TextField for 
editing, and a ListView for selection, and there is no escaping the fact 
that all input is String-based. The text property essentially represents 
the 'raw' text prior to commit.

In other words, I think the current patch on RT-19589 is correct for the 
text property use case. Future use cases will be handled in the same way 
- by adding API to ComboBox directly. The text property would be added 
to ComboBox, not ComboBoxBase, so future combo box implementations can 
go ahead without the text property clogging up the API.

-- Jonathan


On 15/03/2012 12:28 a.m., Alexandre (Shura) Iline wrote:
> Jonathan,
>
> Judging from the javadoc, combobox component could handle different 
> types - not only String. I could redefine the skin, I assume, and have 
> any editor within it, so, there may not be a text field to get a text 
> from in the first place.
>
> Should the "text" property be of a type T and named somehow else?
>
> Shura.
>
> On 03/14/2012 04:53 AM, Jonathan Giles wrote:
>> Hi all (yet again),
>>
>> A quick one this time: http://javafx-jira.kenai.com/browse/RT-19589
>>
>> I'm wanting to add a text property to ComboBox, to allow for people to
>> easily set the text in the ComboBox without committing it to being a
>> value. More importantly, this also allows for developers to extract the
>> content of the ComboBox TextField without having to have end-users press
>> the Enter key to commit the text into the value property.
>>
>> Without this end users who want to support Enter-less committing of
>> content have to reach into the ComboBox skin, which is not particularly
>> pleasant.
>>
>> Any thoughts?
>>