JavaFX 8: how to add a timedelay to a listener?

Question

I\'m working on an JavaFX 8 app right now, where i have a tableView and some textFields above which make it possible to search/filter for certain columns in the tableView. I

Answer 1

Interesting problem, and one which I'm sure others have dealt with. I'm thinking this through for the first time and don't know how practical this suggestion is, but here goes:

Have your text field listeners send a notification to a queue. Then, use a util.TimerTask method that executes at your preferred time interval to process the queue, and use that to build a new filter (or not).

The wait time in the above could be rather varied, so to make it a bit more consistent, send the text field ID with a time stamp and have the Timer run more frequently and only process the new filter if a certain amount of time has elapsed.

There are various concurrency-safe queues that could be used to house the data.

Answer 2

The code below will schedule to do something after a 1 second delay from the last time a text field changes. If the text field changes within that 1 second window, the previous change is ignored and the something is scheduled to be done with the new value 1 second from the most recent change.

PauseTransition pause = new PauseTransition(Duration.seconds(1));
textField.textProperty().addListener(
    (observable, oldValue, newValue) -> {
        pause.setOnFinished(event -> doSomething(newValue));
        pause.playFromStart();
    }
);

I didn't test this, but it should work :-)

A more sophisticated solution might be to make use of a "forgetful" ReactFX suspendable event stream. ReactFX based solutions are discussed in the related question:

• Wait before Reacting to a Property Change JavaFX 8