DataTables 1.7.2 released

allan

Hello all,

I'm really pleased to be able to release DataTables 1.7.2. The focus in this release is mainly on bug fixing what has been brought to light since the last release. Each bug fix in this release has had unit tests committed with it to ensure that it won't crop up again, and DataTables now has a suite of more than 1400 units tests - which will continue to grow as each new feature and fix is included.

However, stabilisation isn't the only exciting thing here - the really fun one is infinite scrolling: http://datatables.net/examples/basic_init/scroll_y_infinite.html . Building on the ability of DataTables 1.7 to do scrolling, infinite scrolling allows data to be loaded and drawn dynamically as a user scrolls through a table. This can be really useful for large datasets, and even better it requires no modification to your server-side scripts (indeed, it works with either client-side or server-side processing).

Also new with this release is the ability to give an element created by sDom and ID by using a hash (for example: "lf<#id.class>tip"), and an improvement to how jQuery UI themed headers are dealt with for easier and more accurate positioning of the sorting icons.

As always the download and release notes are here:

- Download: http://datatables.net/releases/DataTables-1.7.2.zip
- Release notes: http://datatables.net/download

And finally, if you are using DataTables and find it useful, please consider making a donation. These donations allow me to continue supporting and developing for DataTables: http://datatables.net/donate

Enjoy!
Allan

sd_zuo

Oh, I am taking the front row seat :)
Thank you very much for implementing the ID support in sDOM.

arrkay

hi Allan,

(first, since I haven't posted here before, my sincere compliments for the awesome work you've done on this!)

it looks like FixedHeader is missing its minified version in the 1.7.2 download.. it didn't seem to be changed from that in 1.7.1 though, so not serious but I thought to let you know.

regards,
Riaan

allan

Hi Riaan,

Thanks for the heads up on that! You are indeed quite right - in fact, none of the 'extras' are correctly built. I've just repackaged 1.7.2 and uploaded it with the correct options for the first class plug-ins :-)

Regards,
Allan

MikeS

Hi Allan,

The infinite scrolling in the examples of the download work as I expected. It does not appear to be the same as the example you have for the online demo, http://datatables.net/examples/basic_init/scroll_y_infinite.html

As you'd mentioned, there is no need to show the paging control, however there are two Next and Previous buttons showing. In addition, if I use the vertical scrollbar, nothing happens except that the existing records scroll. I expected to see more records displayed in the table (like the example in the download shows).

Did I miss something about the online demo of infinite scrolling?

allan

Hi MikeS,

Sounds a bit odd! If I load the page you linked to, I don't see any paging buttons. Likewise, the scrollbar works as expected when scrolling. Is it possible your browser has cached v1.7.1 of DataTables and is using that? If you clear your cache and try again, does that sort it out?

Regards,
Allan

MikeS

Allan,

You were correct and I should have know better. It works once I clear the browser cache.

I have another question about infinite scrolling. Currently I load the data into datatables using an Ajax source that points to a local JSON text file that contains 100 records. When the table appears, it displays the information and shows a vertical scrollbar. I can use the latter to scroll the data in the viewport (I have sScrollY: "80%" and bScrollCollapse: true) and all is well. If I put the new bScrollInfinite: true, datatable initially displays 10 records and if I scroll the table it displays an additional 10 and so on. My question is, how is the infinite scrolling feature better than what I was doing prior to adding bScrollingInfinite? Is it strictly a memory saving feature in that if a user never scrolls the table, no extra memory is used over what datatable utilizes for the initial display? Is the memory use the same once the user has scrolled to the end of the dataset?

allan

There can be come memory usage advantage when using infinite scrolling, but only under certain circumstances: specifically when dealing with very large tables. You are unlikely to see any difference with just 100 or so records (particularly with client-side processing since the rows still need to be stored).

What it can do is speed up draw time if you want to present an interface which doesn't include paging. Rather than needing to draw large numbers of rows (for example one table I've been working on as 20'000 rows) it will just add them into the page dynamically - and it's the reflow which is the slowest part of the modern browser.

So to be honest, I'd tend to look at this more of a different interface method to present table data (an alternative to paging controls), rather than an optimisation - unless dealing with large numbers of rows, at which point, yes, it can be very useful.

Regards,
Allan

SRussellN

Could you upload this release, and probably future releases, to your jQuery datatables plugin page (http://plugins.jquery.com/project/DataTables)? My company no longer will allow me to download the files from your site as it claims the download is hosted on a non-USA website and they only allow code from a USA website.

Really...

Thank you for your consideration.