Differences between ComboBox and ChoiceBox in JavaFX

Question

What are the differences between ComboBox and ChoiceBox in JavaFX? I'm not entirely clear on that just from the Javadoc for both classes.

At the end of the day, I need a dropdown control that can be repopulated dynamically at runtime (I've got a database on the backend). For all cases in my application, I only need to select one item from the dropdown menus. The user also shouldn't be able to add an option to the dropdown menu from the screens they are visible on.

My understanding is that ComboBox allows the user to add items to the dropdown list and allows for selecting multiple items, but from the Javadoc it seems like it's possible to setup ComboBox in a way that meets my needs, so it seems like they're interchangeable to some extent. I guess ComboBox has a bit more overhead than I really need in this case, but is there anything else that only a ComboBox could do that would factor into this decision?

Edit

I guess I kind of answered my own question on the key differences, so is there something else I've not mentioned that differentiates the 2?

Solution 1

ComboBox supports a cellFactory which allows essentially an arbitrary UI for displaying the item in each cell. ChoiceBox does not have this functionality and will only display text in each cell (which you can configure using a converter).

See http://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/javafx/user-interface-tutorial/combo-box.htm#BABJCCIB listing 16.5 for an example of a custom cell factory in a combo box.

Solution 2

Well ChoiceBox is of the idea showing you optional choices, and ComboBox well shows you a list of items, ChoiceBox is like ComboBox but ComboBox is for a really lengthy list as you can specify the number of items to display like 10 or more or less, but ChoiceBox does not have the option it list all options and if its very long you wouldn't like the look.

in short ChoiceBox, for small set of list less than 10, for more ComboBox

That is from my perspective the difference, as for styling you can style all.

Solution 3

Combo Box A combo box is a typical element of a user interface that enables users to choose one of several options. A combo box is helpful when the number of items to show exceeds some limit, because it can add scrolling to the drop down list, unlike a choice box. If the number of items does not exceed a certain limit, developers can decide whether a combo box or a choice box better suits their needs.

Choice Box This chapter describes choice boxes, the UI controls that provide support for quickly selecting between a few options.

http://docs.oracle.com/javafx/2/ui_controls/jfxpub-ui_controls.htm

Solution 4

We can simply differentiate ComboBox and ChoiceBox by their functionalities.Just have a look on deffintion.

The JavaFX ComboBox control enables users to choose an option from a predefined list of choices, or type in another value if none of the predefined choices matches what the user want to select.

The JavaFX ChoiceBox control enables users to choose an option from a predefined list of choices only.

Solution 5

Apart from the mentioned differences:

• ComboBox can show a prompt with setPromptText (ChoiceBox doesn't provide that method)
• ComboBox can show more than 10 rows with setVisibleRowCount (ChoiceBox doesn't provide that method)

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