Dynamically add columns rather than rows with AJAX callback

m0smith

Hi all,

I have been working with DataTables for a short while and really like the many features and the examples of how to use them. It has made my job a lot easier. Thanks.

For my current project I need to have a table but with the row and column functionality inverted. The table needs to have a fixed number of rows and the number of columns may be dynamic. In this application each column represents a date and as the users scrolls, they see older and older data.

Adding an horizontal scroll bar is easy enough. However, I cannot find a way to dynamically add columns as the user scrolls. There is great support for adding dynamic rows from an AJAX callback but nothing for adding columns dynamically.

Does anyone have a suggestion for dynamically adding columns or are columns required to be fixed?

allan

This isn't a feature that DataTables currently has. At the moment once the table is initialised then the number of columns are fixed.

There are two possible work arounds: 1 use column visibility - have a lot of columns and only show the columns you need, or 2. a plug-in could be written to dynamically add and remove columns.

Having said that, the concept of the table having columns x rows rather than the other way around is deeply engrained into DataTables - for example you can do horizontal sorting or filtering, only vertical.

So I'm afraid that DataTables is possibly not suited to that task.

Allan

m0smith

Thanks for the response. We are looking for another way to show the data.

cubenz

Similar, but simpler.

I want conditionally to add a check box on to each row (either all rows have a check box or not, depending on user's permissions).

Can checkbox markup be included in the json data?

Thanks

cubenz

Update;

I have found that adding the input to the json works:


{ "aaData": [
[ "UP-019209","1/07/2011","Unrated","PPKAEOEX",""]
]}

so the question is, is this the best way to do this, or should I use fnRender() or fnRowCallback() to achieve the desired result?