JavaFX 8: ComboBox button cell update behavior - combobox

Question

I have a combo box which contains items of type Dog. If all items are replaced with new ones (via setAll on the ObservableList model) , the item renderer can cope with this update, while the button cell renderer cannot:
Here's a minimal example to reproduce the problem (full source incl. imports on GitHub):
public class ComboBoxRefresh extends Application {
private static final class Dog {
private final String name;
public Dog(String name) {
this.name = name;
}
}
private static final class DogListCell extends ListCell<Dog> {
#Override
public void updateItem(Dog item, boolean empty) {
super.updateItem(item, empty);
if (item == null || empty) {
setText("");
} else {
setText(item.name);
}
}
}
private static List<Dog> createThreeDogs() {
return range(0, 3).mapToObj(i -> new Dog("Buddy " + i)).collect(toList());
}
#Override
public void start(Stage stage) throws Exception {
ObservableList<Dog> items = observableArrayList(createThreeDogs());
ComboBox<Dog> comboBox = new ComboBox<>(items);
comboBox.setPrefWidth(400);
comboBox.setCellFactory(listView -> new DogListCell());
comboBox.setButtonCell(new DogListCell());
Button button = new Button("Refresh");
button.setOnAction(event -> {
List<Dog> newItems = createThreeDogs();
items.setAll(newItems);
});
VBox box = new VBox(10, comboBox, button);
box.setPadding(new Insets(10));
Scene scene = new Scene(box);
stage.setScene(scene);
stage.show();
}
}
If I add an equals implementation to the Dog class, everything works, but this is not an option in my real application.
Are there any work-arounds to enforce a proper refresh of the button cell?

Answer 1

It seems to be a bug. Workaround could be
button.setOnAction( event -> {
List<Dog> newItems = createThreeDogs();
items.clear();
items.addAll(newItems);
} );