How can I display checkboxes instead of boolean in vaadin grid?

Question

I'm working on a new application using vaadin-spring-boot-starter 21.0.7 and trying to render training database information in a Grid. I'd like to have the first column in the list be a checkbox for Active/Inactive, but I can't figure out how to get that done. Everything I've seen has been for Vaadin 7 or 8. Mostly current code is in MainView.java at https://github.com/gregoryleblanc/ealOperators/tree/vaadin

Answer 1

You can do it like this for Vaadin 14 and newer. I have no experience with older versions of Vaadin.

grid.addComponentColumn(myBean -> {
  Checkbox checkbox = new Checkbox();
  checkbox.setValue(true); // this you must handle
  checkbox.addClickListener(e -> {
    // todo
  }
  return checkbox;
});

The lambda may be replaced with a method reference

grid.addComponentColumn(this::createCheckboxComponent);

private Component createCheckboxComponent(MyBean myBean) {
  Checkbox checkbox = new Checkbox();
  // code here
  return checkbox;
}

Answer 2

I'm using some super old version of vaadin, but I guess the same solution should work in the latest one as well, here's how I usually do it:

• column of type String
• column has added ButtonRenderer (column.setRenderer) renderer with event listener, that allows me to handle user's click action
• value would be a String with FontAwesome font (added custom CSS style font-family and configured it at grid with setCellStyleGenerator)
• when checked use value String.valueOf((char) FontAwesome.CHECK_SQUARE_O.getCodepoint())
• when unchecked use value String.valueOf((char) FontAwesome.SQUARE_O.getCodepoint())

There could be easier ways to do it with newer version of vaadin. However, this method should still work.