dynamically populate ChoiceBox from editable column in TableView

Question

Basically the question title says it all. I have a column of strings (called type) in a tableview and a corresponding column of numbers (called size),

Answer 1

Assuming I understand the question correctly, you need to initialize your cargoList with an extractor:

ObservableList cargoList = FXCollections.observableArrayList(cargo -> 
    new Observable[]{cargo.typeProperty(), cargo.sizeProperty()});

ChoiceBox has a history of not working well with update notifications to its underlying list; I'm not sure if everything is fixed in the latest version. You might want to consider switching to a ComboBox instead.

Update

If you need to use a ChoiceBox, a workaround might be not to set the items directly to cargoList, but to update the items whenever cargoList changes. You can do this by making the following change in setMainApp(...):

//  externalChoiceBox.setItems(cargoList); 
    externalChoiceBox.getItems().setAll(cargoList);

and adding the following in your list change listener:

  cargoList.addListener(new ListChangeListener< CargoItem>(){
     public void onChanged(Change c){
         // Do your changes here
        System.out.println(c.getList()); 
        externalChoiceBox.getItems().setAll(cargoList);
     }});