Server-side DataTable Sorting in RichFaces

Question

I have a data table with a variable number of columns and a data scroller. How can I enable server side sorting? I prefer that it be fired by the user clicking the column header

Answer 1

Your datamodel needs to implement "Modifiable" interface.

The datatable will call it's modify() method to do serverside sorting and filtering.

Answer 2

Cant you just use Collection.sort() when you retrieve the List?

Answer 3

Have a look at the "sortBy" property of "rich:columns", maybe that's what you're looking for. Richfaces Reference

Answer 4

I ended up doing it manually. I adding a support tag to the header text tag, like so.

<h:outputText value="#{column}">
  <a4j:support event="onclick" action="#{pageDataModel.sort(idx)}"
               eventsQueue="instancesQueue"
               reRender="instanceList,instanceListScroller"/>
</h:outputText>

To get the ascending/descending arrows, I added a css class.

<h:outputText value="#{column}" styleClass="#{pageDataModel.getOrderClass(idx)}" >
  <a4j:support event="onclick" action="#{pageDataModel.sort(idx)}"
               eventsQueue="instancesQueue"
               reRender="instanceList,instanceListScroller"/>
</h:outputText>

Answer 5

There is a fairly elegant solution to this solution here:

http://livedemo.exadel.com/richfaces-demo/richfaces/sortingFeature.jsf?tab=ex-usage

This demo avoids using the tag.