How to sort the choices in a Wicket dropdown according to the current user locale? - localization

Question

I have the following issue:
a drop down with a list of elements
each of these elements has a fixed key, which is used by the IChoiceRenderer implementation to look up the localized version of the key (it's a standard, utility renderer implemented in a different package)
the list of localized keys is in a properties file, linked to the panel which instantiates the dropdown.
Is there an elegant/reusable solution to have the dropdown display its elements sorted alphabetically ?

Answer 1

In the end, I think using the render is probably the best approach. To make it reusable and efficient, I isolated this in a Behavior.
Here's the code:
import org.apache.wicket.Component;
import org.apache.wicket.behavior.Behavior;
import org.apache.wicket.markup.html.form.AbstractChoice;
import org.apache.wicket.markup.html.form.IChoiceRenderer;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Comparator;
import java.util.List;
import static java.util.Arrays.sort;
/**
* This {#link Behavior} can only be used on {#link AbstractChoice} subclasses. It will sort the choices
* according to their "natural display order" (i.e. the natural order of the display values of the choices).
* This assumes that the display value implements {#link Comparable}. If this is not the case, you should
* provide a comparator for the display value. An instance of this class <em>cannot be shared</em> between components.
* Because the rendering can be costly, the sort-computation is done only once, by default,
* unless you set to <code>false</code> the <code>sortOnlyOnce</code> argument in the constructor.
*
* #author donckels (created on 2012-06-07)
*/
#SuppressWarnings({"unchecked"})
public class OrderedChoiceBehavior extends Behavior {
// ----- instance fields -----
private Comparator displayValueComparator;
private boolean sortOnlyOnce = true;
private boolean sorted;
// ----- constructors -----
public OrderedChoiceBehavior() {
}
public OrderedChoiceBehavior(boolean sortOnlyOnce) {
this.sortOnlyOnce = sortOnlyOnce;
}
public OrderedChoiceBehavior(boolean sortOnlyOnce, Comparator displayValueComparator) {
this.sortOnlyOnce = sortOnlyOnce;
this.displayValueComparator = displayValueComparator;
}
// ----- public methods -----
#Override
public void beforeRender(Component component) {
if (this.sorted && this.sortOnlyOnce) { return;}
AbstractChoice owner = (AbstractChoice) component;
IChoiceRenderer choiceRenderer = owner.getChoiceRenderer();
List choices = owner.getChoices();
// Temporary data structure: store the actual rendered value with its initial index
Object[][] displayValuesWithIndex = new Object[choices.size()][2];
for (int i = 0, valuesSize = choices.size(); i < valuesSize; i++) {
Object value = choices.get(i);
displayValuesWithIndex[i][0] = choiceRenderer.getDisplayValue(value);
displayValuesWithIndex[i][1] = i;
}
sort(displayValuesWithIndex, new DisplayValueWithIndexComparator());
List valuesCopy = new ArrayList(choices);
for (int i = 0, length = displayValuesWithIndex.length; i < length; i++) {
Object[] displayValueWithIndex = displayValuesWithIndex[i];
int originalIndex = (Integer) displayValueWithIndex[1];
choices.set(i, valuesCopy.get(originalIndex));
}
this.sorted = true;
}
public Comparator getDisplayValueComparator() {
return this.displayValueComparator;
}
// ----- inner classes -----
private class DisplayValueWithIndexComparator implements Comparator<Object[]> {
// ----- Comparator -----
public int compare(Object[] left, Object[] right) {
Object leftDisplayValue = left[0];
Object rightDisplayValue = right[0];
if (null == leftDisplayValue) { return -1;}
if (null == rightDisplayValue) { return 1;}
if (null == getDisplayValueComparator()) {
return ((Comparable) leftDisplayValue).compareTo(rightDisplayValue);
} else {
return getDisplayValueComparator().compare(leftDisplayValue, rightDisplayValue);
}
}
}
}

Answer 2

Use this extension of DropDownChoice using Java's Collator (basically locale sensitive sorting - take national characters and national sorting rules into account)
Code tested with Wicket 6 and Java 5+:
import java.text.Collator;
import java.util.Comparator;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Locale;
import org.apache.wicket.Session;
import org.apache.wicket.markup.html.form.DropDownChoice;
import org.apache.wicket.markup.html.form.IChoiceRenderer;
import org.apache.wicket.model.IModel;
import com.google.common.collect.Ordering;
/**
* DropDownChoice which sort its choices (or in HTML's terminology select's options) according it's localized value
* and using current locale based Collator so it's sorted how it should be in particular language (ie. including national characters,
* using right order).
*
* #author Michal Bernhard michal#bernhard.cz 2013
*
* #param <T>
*/
public class OrderedDropDownChoice<T> extends DropDownChoice<T> {
public OrderedDropDownChoice(String id, IModel<? extends List<? extends T>> choices, IChoiceRenderer<? super T> renderer) {
super(id, choices, renderer);
}
public OrderedDropDownChoice(String id, IModel<? extends List<? extends T>> choices) {
super(id, choices);
}
public OrderedDropDownChoice(String id) {
super(id);
}
public OrderedDropDownChoice(
String id,
IModel<T> model,
IModel<? extends List<? extends T>> choices,
IChoiceRenderer<? super T> renderer) {
super(id, model, choices, renderer);
}
#Override
public List<? extends T> getChoices() {
List<? extends T> unsortedChoices = super.getChoices();
List<? extends T> sortedChoices = Ordering.from(displayValueAlphabeticComparator()).sortedCopy(unsortedChoices);
return sortedChoices;
}
private Collator localeBasedTertiaryCollator() {
Locale currentLocale = Session.get().getLocale();
Collator collator = Collator.getInstance(currentLocale);
collator.setStrength(Collator.TERTIARY);
return collator;
}
private Comparator<T> displayValueAlphabeticComparator() {
final IChoiceRenderer<? super T> renderer = getChoiceRenderer();
return new Comparator<T>() {
#Override
public int compare(T o1, T o2) {
Object o1DisplayValue = renderer.getDisplayValue(o1);
Object o2DisplayValue = renderer.getDisplayValue(o2);
return localeBasedTertiaryCollator().compare(o1DisplayValue, o2DisplayValue);
}
};
}
}
Copied from https://gist.github.com/michalbcz/7236242

Answer 3

If you want a Wicket-based solution you can try to sort the list with something like that:
public class ChoiceRendererComparator<T> implements Comparator<T> {
private final IChoiceRenderer<T> renderer;
public ChoiceRendererComparator(IChoiceRenderer<T> renderer) {
this.renderer = renderer;
}
#SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
public int compare(T o1, T o2) {
return ((Comparable<Object>) renderer.getDisplayValue(o1)).compareTo(renderer.getDisplayValue(o2));
}
}
Usage:
List<Entity> list = ...
IChoiceRenderer<Entity> renderer = ...
Collections.sort(list, new ChoiceRendererComparator<Entity>(renderer));
DropDownChoice<Entity> dropdown = new DropDownChoice<Entity>("dropdown", list, renderer);

Answer 4

The solution we use at my company is Javascript based, we set a special css class on the dropdowns we want to be sorted, and a little jQuery trick does the sort.

Answer 5

Facing the same problem, I moved part of the localisation data from my XMLs to the database, implemented a matching Resolver and was able to use the localized Strings for sorting.
The table design and hibernate configuration was kind of tricky and is described here: Hibernate #ElementCollection - Better solution needed.
The ResourceLoader is along these lines:
public class DataBaseStringResourceLoader extends ComponentStringResourceLoader {
private static final transient Logger logger = Logger
.getLogger(DataBaseStringResourceLoader.class);
#Inject
private ISomeDAO someDao;
#Inject
private IOtherDao otherDao;
#Inject
private IThisDAO thisDao;
#Inject
private IThatDAO thatDao;
#Override
public String loadStringResource(Class<?> clazz, String key, Locale locale,
String style, String variation) {
String resource = loadFromDB(key, new Locale(locale.getLanguage()));
if (resource == null) {
resource = super.loadStringResource(clazz, key, locale, style, variation);
}
return resource;
}
private String loadFromDB(String key, Locale locale) {
String resource = null;
if (locale.getLanguage() != Locale.GERMAN.getLanguage()
&& locale.getLanguage() != Locale.ENGLISH.getLanguage()) {
locale = Locale.ENGLISH;
}
if (key.startsWith("some") || key.startsWith("other")
|| key.startsWith("this") || key.startsWith("that")) {
Integer id = Integer.valueOf(key.substring(key.indexOf(".") + 1));
ILocalizedObject master;
if (key.startsWith("some")) {
master = someDao.findById(id);
} else if (key.startsWith("other")) {
master = otherDao.findById(id);
} else if (key.startsWith("this") ){
master = thisDao.findById(id);
} else {
master = thatDao.findById(id);
}
if (master != null && master.getNames().get(locale) != null) {
resource = master.getNames().get(locale).getName();
} else if (master == null) {
logger.debug("For key " + key + " there is no master.");
}
}
return resource;
}
[...]
}