Question

Is there any way to select items by key with GWT’s selection model? setSelected only seems to take an object from which it can derive a Key, but using that function means I have to construct a sort of fake object. If my KeyProvider ever changes, that part of my code could break without my knowledge, so I’d like to just construct a key directly somehow.

Answer 1

“I have a celltable that shows a list of entities. When the user creates a new entity, I want to refresh the list (which will have the new entity) and automatically select the new entity.”

I have this behaviour in my app as well. I manipulate the ListDataProvider. I find the item or items of interest, move them to the top of the list, call the selection model to set them to selected, and refresh the attached data displays. I use the same approach for picklist tables I use when I want to pre-select the default choices for the user (usually based on the item that is spawning the picklist) and move them to the top of the list. I spent a lot of time looking through the selection model api and there is nothing for keys. I suspect that the GWT designers figured it wasn’t necessary, since you have access to the ListDataProvider. Find the items of interest there and then call the selection model select method on those specific objects. I can see their point — replicating the functionality in ListDataProvider and SelectionModel would blur the distinction between the two classes, and perhaps limit the reusability of the SelectionModel construction in other (future) data structures that don’t use keys.