Initial sortorder for PrimeFaces datatable with multisort

Question

I am trying to implement multisort on Primeface datatable. We are using Primefaces v3.5. I have created a new load method in the LazyLoadClass that takes the List of SortMet

Answer 1

I was able to get this to work.

Essentially we need to provide the UIColumn in the SortMeta object for it to work. For the initial sort at render time, I had to find the component in my bean and assign that to the sortMeta.

Below is my code in the view xhtml

        <p:dataTable id="transDataTable" var="trans" 
        value="#{myBean.transModel}" paginator="true" rows="50"
        paginatorAlwaysVisible="false" lazy="true"
        sortMode="multiple" sortBy="#{myBean.preSortOrder}" 
        resizableColumns="true">

        <p:column headerText="User" sortBy="#{trans.user.name}" >
            #{trans.user.name}
        </p:column>
        <p:column headerText="Company" sortBy="#{trans.companyName}">
            #{trans.companyName}
        </p:column>
        <p:column headerText="Join Date" id="joinDateTime" 
            sortBy="#{trans.joinDateTime}" >
            <h:outputText value="#{trans.joinDateTime}" />
        </p:column>
    </p:dataTable>

Here is my bean code called on @PostConstruct

        /*
     * method to build initial sort order for multisort
     */
    private void buildSortOrder() {
        UIViewRoot viewRoot =  FacesContext.getCurrentInstance().getViewRoot();
        UIComponent column = viewRoot.findComponent("transDataTable:joinDateTime"); 

        SortMeta sm1 = new SortMeta();
        sm1.setSortBy((UIColumn)column);
        sm1.setSortField("joinDateTime");
        sm1.setSortOrder(SortOrder.DESCENDING);
        preSortOrder.add(sm1);          
    }

I am not sure this is the right way to do this, but it works. I am usually uncomfortable when we have to use the ids from view in the bean code, as that can introduce bugs when people are not careful.

Thanks @CagatayCivici for the quick hint.