How do I bind a custom property to a textfield bidirectionally? - kotlin

Question

I have a complex object that I want to display in a textfield. This is working fine with a stringBinding. But I don't know how to make it two-way so that the textfield is editable.
package com.example.demo.view
import javafx.beans.property.SimpleObjectProperty
import javafx.beans.property.SimpleStringProperty
import tornadofx.*
class MainView : View("Hello TornadoFX") {
val complexThing: Int = 1
val complexProperty = SimpleObjectProperty<Int>(complexThing)
val complexString = complexProperty.stringBinding { complexProperty.toString() }
val plainString = "asdf"
val plainProperty = SimpleStringProperty(plainString)
override val root = vbox {
textfield(complexString)
label(plainProperty)
textfield(plainProperty)
}
}
When I run this, the plainString is editable and I see the label change because the edits are going back into the property.
How can I write a custom handler or what class do I need to use to make the stringBinding be read and write? I looked through a lot of the Property and binding documentation but did not see anything obvious.

Answer 1

Ta-Da
class Point(val x: Int, val y: Int) //You can put properties in constructor
class PointConverter: StringConverter<Point?>() {
override fun fromString(string: String?): Point? {
if(string.isNullOrBlank()) return null //Empty strings aren't valid
val xy = string.split(",", limit = 2) //Only using 2 coordinate values so max is 2
if(xy.size < 2) return null //Min values is also 2
val x = xy[0].trim().toIntOrNull() //Trim white space, try to convert
val y = xy[1].trim().toIntOrNull()
return if(x == null || y == null) null //If either conversion fails, count as invalid
else Point(x, y)
}
override fun toString(point: Point?): String {
return "${point?.x},${point?.y}"
}
}
class MainView : View("Hello TornadoFX") {
val point = Point(5, 6) //Probably doesn't need to be its own member
val pointProperty = SimpleObjectProperty<Point>(point)
val pc = PointConverter()
override val root = vbox {
label(pointProperty, converter = pc) //Avoid extra properties, put converter in construction
textfield(pointProperty, pc)
}
}
I made edits to your converter to "account" for invalid input by just returning null. This is just a simple band-aid solution that doesn't enforce correct input, but it does refuse to put bad values in your property.

Answer 2

This can probably be done more cleanly. I bet there is a way around the extra property. The example is fragile because it doesn't do input checking in the interest of keeping it simple. But it works to demonstrate the solution:
class Point(x: Int, y: Int) {
val x: Int = x
val y: Int = y
}
class PointConverter: StringConverter<Point?>() {
override fun fromString(string: String?): Point? {
val xy = string?.split(",")
return Point(xy[0].toInt(), xy[1].toInt())
}
override fun toString(point: Point?): String {
return "${point?.x},${point?.y}"
}
}
class MainView : View("Hello TornadoFX") {
val point = Point(5, 6)
val pointProperty = SimpleObjectProperty<Point>(point)
val pointDisplayProperty = SimpleStringProperty()
val pointStringProperty = SimpleStringProperty()
val pc = PointConverter()
init {
pointDisplayProperty.set(pc.toString(pointProperty.value))
pointStringProperty.set(pc.toString(pointProperty.value))
pointStringProperty.addListener { observable, oldValue, newValue ->
pointProperty.set(pc.fromString(newValue))
pointDisplayProperty.set(pc.toString(pointProperty.value))
}
}
override val root = vbox {
label(pointDisplayProperty)
textfield(pointStringProperty)
}
}