How can I bind a empty cell to a Drop Down List if I get the items of...

Question

the List from a DataProvider?
I need this for a Search-Site where I also can choose the option "find all" at the different DD-Lists...

Answer 1

What I do is, instead of binding the DropDown directly to the DataProvider, I bind it to a function inside my BackBean who returns the Option[] required, and in that function I load the items from the DB plus whatever else I want (in our case we add a blank cell as the first and selected option).
Here's an example:
public Option[] getUserItems () {
     return ( loadDDFromDB ( "id_user", tb_userDataProvider ) );
public static Option[] loadDDFromDB (String sRowID, AbstractTableDataProvider CurrentDataProvider) {
          Option ArrayOptions[] = new Option[0];
          if ( CurrentDataProvider.cursorFirst () ) {
               ArrayList ALUnsorted = new ArrayList ();
               do {
                    if ( CurrentDataProvider.getValue (sRowID) != null )
                         ALUnsorted.add ( CurrentDataProvider.getValue (sRowID) );
               while ( CurrentDataProvider.cursorNext () );
               Collections.sort (ALUnsorted);
               unique (ALUnsorted);
               ArrayOptions = new Option[ALUnsorted.size () + 1];
               int iCtr = 1;
               ArrayOptions[0] = new Option ("");
               for ( Iterator itOptions = ALUnsorted.iterator (); itOptions.hasNext (); )
                    ArrayOptions[iCtr++] = new Option ( itOptions.next ().toString () );
          return ( ArrayOptions );
     }Hope this helps.