Plug-in suggestions

allan

This thread is to keep track of suggestions for plug-ins. If you have any ideas for what you would like to see as a plug-in for DataTables (be it API, filtering, sorting, etc) drop a message in here. I'll maintain a list in this thread, and then as members of the community and myself implement them I'll add links.

Ideas might not be implemented immediately, but if you don't suggest what you need, we won't know what you want :-)

jLinux

Oh nice :-)

Ive gotten the ideas for the only two plugins ive created for DataTables from the forum threads actually.

• Hide Empty Columns
• Keep Conditions

And dont forget YADCF by @daniel_r

jLinux

And.. Just finished a 3rd one :-D Live Ajax

glenderson

I would like to see the adjustable column width brought back. I had a situation that some users asked to be able to modify the column width via the mouse drag operation.

jLinux

Hmm.. i dont thi k theres a way to set the widths via the api. I know you can recalc them, but i dont think you can specify the widths... maybe i can find a way tho

jLinux

@glenderson look here, I got it working with jQuery Resize Columns.

Really cool extension actually... It stores the column width sizes in cookies I think, so they're persistent widths.

If by the time youve clicked the above link and the trial thingy expired, then just go here and copy the HTML/JS to another instance, and view the preview. It wont work in edit mode

I might look at how its done and try to create a plugin for DT similar to that.. Or maybe even just Fork that and convert it into a plugin for DT :-O (Would that be ok to do? or is it frowned upon?.. heh)

P.S. This one works too

glenderson

Silly me, that looks easy enough to implement! Thanks.

glenderson

So, I don't think I was so silly after all. None of these plugins seem to work well with dataTables. The ability to get the drag handle is very impeded because of features like the column reorder and sort icons.

My request for plugin still exists, a plugin that can be used to drag and resize columns that integrate well with the other features of dataTables.

jLinux

Ah, ok. I didnt know you used those, my bad

zepernick

I had been wanting to release this column searching plugin for sometime so I thought I would share it here.

https://github.com/zepernick/DataTables-ColumnSearching

Here is a fiddle of it in action. This also includes the responsive extension so you can see that the search fields drop out of the header as the responsive extension collapses the columns.

https://jsfiddle.net/zepernick/s7xmz7g3/

jLinux

@zepernick, why are there extra columns? Im biewing on my cell and it adds two extra

http://d.pr/i/dcnM/52Kinu0m

Also, have you heard of the yadcf plugin? Same concept. Its what ive been using

zepernick

Hi @jlinux, I suspect there is some sort of issue in the mobile browser you are using? I just tried on iOS 9 and it works. It also works resizing the viewport in the desktop. Below is a screenshot from iOS 9.

https://app.box.com/s/p2byas3qe6dzc2oqwqs0lzegmcehdeqx

What os is on the mobile in the screenshot. Were you using the same fiddle from the link posted here ?

I actually just came across yadcf a couple days ago, but I have several projects using my plugin so I will continue to maintain this one. Yadcf does look like it has a lot of nice feature for implementing different search controls. My guess is that the new responsive 2.0 probably breaks it depending on how they are listening for columns collapsing. Thanks for he feedback! Would love to fix the problem you are seeing on your mobile if possible.

jLinux

Maybe, just figure if the DatatTables Responsive plugin works just fine, but the filters are still showing, it may be an issue with the filter plugin

I used the same fiddle link you posted, Samsung Galaxy Note 4, Android 5.1.1, Chrome 46.0.2490.76

jLinux

I think @PashaTech had a good idea for a plug-in in this thread, he wanted to know if the RowReorder plugin could move rows from table to table.

Obviously there would be a few caveats to this capability... The main thing I can think of is the table structures would have to be pretty much identical, or the columns wouldnt align. And the content would need to follow whatever the config of columns and columnDefs are.

But it would be cool! Im working on a product where you manage "Assets" within "Partitions", and I plan on allowing people to move or clone assets between partitions, say if they "cloned" or "copied" the partition so it would exist in staging as well as production, then they would be identical, so if they wanted to move assets from staging to production, then this would be awesome

jLinux

@allan - shouldnt this thread stay at the top of the Discussions list? Like the other 3? Just wondering

allan

Its pinned at the top of the plug-ins forum, which is where I'll keep it for the moment. I'll update the first post in this thread with your various plug-ins (awesome all!) as soon as I've finished my rounds (although that might take a few days atm!).

Allan

jLinux

I had an idea for a plugin I think I might create..

Basically, its for "hot-keys", which the only ones I can think of right now would be undo and delete, and maybe copy/cut/paste..

• Undo (Hotkey: Z) - Basically, it would keep a list of actions that that have been done, via DT Events, and keep them in a list. Then whenever you hit the assigned hotkey (Z by default probably), it will undo the last action, and remove it from the list. Pressing Z will keep doing it until the actions list is empty. Since this would keep track of the action based off of events, I think the only events I could keep track of and undo would be column-visibility, column-reorder, row-reorder, and probably find a way to keep track of rows that were deleted/created too (Maybe). And maybe allow users to add other events to watch and undo, such as order, page and length, though I'm not sure these should be events you can undo, at least not by default. Note: Currently, I do believe this would require any row adds or deletes to be proxied through the plugin, or else if a row gets deleted that the plugin doesn't have logged, the events will get all messed up... Ill have to put some thought into this one.
• Row Management (Hotkeys: C, V, X) - Basically allow users to copy/cut/paste rows via hotkeys. This might require the Select to be enabled for the delete, but maybe not, (Maybe if select isn't enabled, it will just take effect on whatever row you're hovering over, not sure the best way). And to tie this into the Undo hotkey above, you could undo the events, but that would make it difficult to undo rows that were added/copied/cut via any method outside of this plugin.. so I'm not sure how ill handle that
• Table Navigation (Various Hotkeys) - allow users to change the page, length, and maybe even order... not sure how, but I'm sure I could find a way.
• Custom Hotkeys - Basically allow the users to assign certain keys to callbacks, which would have access to as much data within the plugin as possible, and given whatever parameters/data may be useful. (EG: My table is a list of 'Assets', and I would create a custom hotkey that would allow users to click on a row, and when they press T, then it would send them to the Asset Timeline for the selected asset(s))

What do you guys think? Would this be a nice plugin to have? The plugins I've created so far derive from my necessity of some functionality I need, and this one would be nice, but it isn't something I need, but if others might use it, or at least think its a good idea, then I can create it! I don't think it would be that hard or take too long. @allan, what do you think?

P.S.: As far as the hotkeys themselves, I should probably watch for both the event ctrlKey and metaKey, since I believe thats what would vary between OS's the most (I think), and the which property is the keys, I'm not positive how consistent that is between OS's and browsers either... Ill do some research, but input here would be cool!

jLinux

I thought this thread would be more popular :( I came back way later, expecting to see some great ideas in here that I could work with.