Shaun Mccran

My digital playground

25
F
E
B
2010

Using the JQuery dataTables plugin to display dynamic data in tables: part 1

Rather than writing out long winded table code to display your data in a tabulated fashion why not use the dataTables JQuery plugin to do it for you?

In this blog entry I'll be generating tables using a JQuery plugin, but I will also be generating the JQuery code from an XML document.

The theory behind the dataTables JQuery plugin is that when the template loads it makes an AJAX request to a remotely specified template. That template returns a JSON object of data which is formatted and used in a tabular display. This means that you can perfom filtering and sort functions inline, and the JQuery simply re submits the AJAX request, receiving new JSON each time. So no refreshing.

I'll be dealing with the auto generation of the JSON back end in the second part of this article. Here is how I setup the tabular display.

Build a standard html template, including the CSS and JQuery plugins.

view plain print about
1<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/transitional.dtd">
2<html lang="en-GB">
3<head>
4<InvalidTag http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" lang="en">
5<InvalidTag name="language" content="en-GB">
6
7<style type="text/css" title="currentStyle">
8    @import "demo_page.css";
9    @import "demo_table.css";
10</style>
11
12<s/cript type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3.2/jquery.min.js"></script>
13<s/cript type="text/javascript" language="javascript" src="jquery.dataTables.js"></script>

Next we build our JQuery function. I wont go into massive detail about all the parameters and values being passed in here, but it is well documented on http://www.datatables.net/.

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1<s/cript type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8">
2$(document).ready(function() {
3                $('#example').dataTable( {
4                    "bProcessing": true,
5                    "bServerSide": true,
6                    "sAjaxSource": "content.cfm",
7                    "aoColumns": [
8{ "sName": "Edit", "sTitle": "Edit", "sWidth":"10%"} ,
9{ "sName": "Band", "sTitle": "Band"} ,
10{ "sName": "Genre","sTitle": "Genre"} ,
11{ "sTitle": "Fake Column"}
12],
13                    "sPaginationType": "full_numbers",
14                    "aaSorting": [[1,'asc']],
15                    "oLanguage": {
16                        "sLengthMenu": "Page length: _MENU_",
17                        "sSearch": "Filter:"
18                    }
19                } );
20            } );
21</script>

The really important column here is the "aoColumns" JSON data block. This specifies what fields are returned from your AJAX call, and parameters they must adhere to.

In this example we are anticipating that we will receive four columns of data back (Edit,Band,Genre and Fake Column).

Lastly we create a table with an ID of "example", as this is what the JQuery is looking for. This table must be formatted in a certain way, as the JQuery plugin will re write the specified elements.

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1<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" class="display" id="example">
2<thead>
3<tr>
4 <th>Edit</th>
5 <th>Band</th>
6 <th>Genre</th>
7 <th>Fake Column</th>
8</tr>
9</thead>
10 <tbody>
11 <tr>
12 <td colspan="3" class="dataTables_empty">Loading data from server</td>
13 </tr>
14 </tbody>
15</table>

The code also contains the header elements that will match the returned column values from the AJAX request. The last part of the table is displayed when the data is loading.

This all works well, but to extend it further I have altered the code to read from an XML document. The XML document Is loaded when the template starts, and the data fields and attributes are read, and looped over to create the JQuery code and table headers. In this way it is a generic table display template, driven from an XML document.

The XML doc:

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1<?xml version="1.0"?>
2 <form>
3 <field sName="Edit" source="data" sTitle="Edit" sWidth="10%">Edit</field>
4 <field sName="Band" source="data" sTitle="Band">Band</field>
5 <field sName="Genre" source="data" sTitle="Genre">Genre</field>
6 <field sName="fake column" source="" sTitle="Fake Column">Fake column</field>
7 </form>

Read the XML file and parse it out into an Array:

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1<!--- parse the xml file --->
2<cfset variables.xml = XMLParse("test.xml") />
3<!--- <cfdump var="#variables.xml#" label="Raw xml document"> --->
4<cfset variables.fields = XMLSearch(variables.xml,"form/field")>
5<cfset variables.totalRecords = ArrayLen(variables.fields)>

Use something like this to dynamically generate the JQuery and table values:

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1<cfoutput>
2<cfloop index="variables.index" from="1" to="#ArrayLen(variables.fields)#">
3 { <cfif variables.fields[variables.index].XmlAttributes.source EQ "data">"sName": "#variables.fields[variables.index].XmlAttributes.sName#",</cfif>
4 <cfif structkeyexists(variables.fields[variables.index].XmlAttributes, 'sTitle')>"sTitle": "#variables.fields[variables.index].XmlAttributes.sTitle#"</cfif>
5 <cfif structkeyexists(variables.fields[variables.index].XmlAttributes, 'sWidth')>,"sWidth":"#variables.fields[variables.index].XmlAttributes.sWidth#"</cfif>
6 } <cfif variables.index NEQ variables.totalRecords>,</cfif>
7</cfloop>
8</cfoutput>
9<!--- table values --->
10
11<cfoutput>
12 <cfloop index="variables.index" from="1" to="#ArrayLen(variables.fields)#">
13 <th align="left">#variables.fields[variables.index].XmlText#</th>
14 </cfloop>
15</cfoutput>

The JSON response is hard coded in this example, so the result will not filter or search. I'll handle that in article two.

There is a full example of this here.

23
F
E
B
2010

Creating a pop up floating div with JQuery

This entry will deal with how to create a displayed / collapsible floating div, using JQuery. When I build a web platform I often like to include small sections of text alongside the functionality, just to provide the users with a little guidance on what is going on. Rather than having these inline, where they can often interfere with the content and display, I like to add them to a 'help' div that I float inside the framework. First we include the JQuery library from Google, and our link. It doesn't go anywhere, but we will attach a JQuery event to it.
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1<s/cript type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3.2/jquery.min.js"></script>
2
3<a href="javascript:void(0);" id="help">Pop me up</a>
4<div>stuff</div>
Next we create our JQuery function, attached to the 'help' div. This adds a div to the document with whatever content you have set in it. There is also a 'close' link in the floating div that calls the close function.
view plain print about
1<s/cript>
2 $(function() {
3 $("#help").live('click', function(event) {
4 $(this).addClass("selected").parent().append('<div class="messagepop pop">Content<p><a class="close" href="/">Cancel</a></p></div>');
5 $(".pop").slideFadeToggle()
6 return false;
7 });
8
9 $(".close").live('click', function() {
10 $(".pop").slideFadeToggle();
11 $("#contact").removeClass("selected");
12 return false;
13 });
14 });
15
16 $.fn.slideFadeToggle = function(easing, callback) {
17 return this.animate({ opacity: 'toggle', height: 'toggle' }, "fast", easing, callback);
18 };
19</script>
Lastly we add some styling and positioning to tie the whole lot together. This gives the pop up div its shape and style. I've positioned the floating div on top of the calling function text.
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1<style>
2a.selected {
3 background-color:#1F75CC;
4 color:white;
5 z-index:100;
6}
7
8.messagepop {
9 background-color:#FFFFFF;
10 border:1px solid #999999;
11 cursor:default;
12 display:none;
13 margin-top: 15px;
14 position:absolute;
15 text-align:left;
16 width:394px;
17 z-index:50;
18 padding: 25px 25px 20px;
19 top: 0px;
20 left: 0px;
21}
22}
23
24label {
25 display: block;
26 margin-bottom: 3px;
27 padding-left: 15px;
28 text-indent: -15px;
29}
30
31.messagepop p, .messagepop.div {
32 border-bottom: 1px solid #EFEFEF;
33 margin: 8px 0;
34 padding-bottom: 8px;
35}
36</style>
You can see an example functionality here.

16
F
E
B
2010

Controlling show() hide() Divs with a JQuery powered Select field

There are many ways of hiding all your page elements then only showing specific areas based on user selection. One old school way of changing the displayed page content was with a select field that had an onchange event that posted to the same page, but with a URL variable.

I have been testing out a variation on this using the JQuery show() / hide() functions.

We attach an event to the select field, and pass the selected option to a JQuery function, as in the example code below.

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1<s/cript type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3.2/jquery.min.js"></script>
2
3<select name="field_data_loc[key]" class="form-select required" id="edit-field-data-loc-key" onChange="showHide(this.value)" >
4<option value="didnotchoose" selected="selected">Choose</option>
5<option value="web">Website</option>
6<option value="file">File to upload</option>
7<option value="url">Url</option>
8</select>

We have a series of DIV's that are named the same as the select field options. All these DIV's will be hidden by default, apart from the "start" div.

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1<div id="start">Starting div</div>
2
3<div id="url">url</div>
4
5<div id= "file">file</div>
6
7<div id= "web">web</div>

Lastly we have our JQuery script. Here we have our showHide function. This accepts a DIV id, which is then shown. All other DIV's are hidden.

The last piece of script here simply hides all the DIV's on the page load, so that they are all hidden by default.

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1<s/cript language="javascript">
2
3    function showHide(obj)
4        {
5            var showDiv = "#"+obj;
6            $("div").hide();
7            $(showDiv).show();
8        }
9
10    // hide all the divs on start up
11    $('#web').hide();
12    $('#file').hide();
13    $('#url').hide();
14
15</script>

Putting it all together, and making it dynamic based on a list, it looks like this:

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1<cfset variables.mylist = "scotland,england,wales,ireland">
2
3<s/cript type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3.2/jquery.min.js"></script>
4
5<cfoutput>
6<select name="field_data_loc[key]" class="form-select required" id="edit-field-data-loc-key" onChange="showHide(this.value)" >
7<option value="didnotchoose" selected="selected">Choose</option>
8
9    <cfloop list="#variables.mylist#" index="variables.index">
10        <option value="#variables.index#">#variables.index#</option>
11    </cfloop>
12
13</select>
14
15<div id="start">Starting div</div>
16
17<cfloop list="#variables.mylist#" index="variables.index">
18    <div id="#variables.index#">#variables.index#</div>
19</cfloop>
20
21<s/cript language="javascript">
22
23    function showHide(obj)
24        {
25            var showDiv = "##"+obj;
26
27            <cfloop list="#variables.mylist#" index="variables.index">
28                $('###variables.index#').hide();
29            </cfloop>
30                $('##start').hide();
31
32            //$("div").hide();
33            $(showDiv).show();
34        }
35
36<cfloop list="#variables.mylist#" index="variables.index">
37    $('###variables.index#').hide();
38</cfloop>
39
40</script>
41</cfoutput>

An example is here.

12
F
E
B
2010

Displaying and sorting/paging tabular data using the JQuery tablesorter plugin, and query objects

One of the more repetitive tasks a server side developer encounters is displaying the results from a query. This is traditionally in the format of a table that displays the rows of data, along with any other functionality, such as paging controls and sortable headers.

I was recently commissioned to look into building a generic table display "engine", and thought I'd investigate if there were any JQuery plugins that could do the bulk of the work for me. Ideally I didn't want to have to write a whole load of script to parse sorting variables, and detect if a limit was set on the returned record set for paging.

After some investigation I ended out using the table sorter JQuery plugin http://tablesorter.com/docs/.

This plugin allows for sortable results that you can page through, and it does not keep posting the values back and forth to the server.

Start by including the references to the JQuery libraries. I've also included references to the paging plugin, and the blue theme stylesheet.

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1<s/cript type="text/javascript" src="/path/to/jquery-latest.js"></script>
2
3<s/cript type="text/javascript" src="/path/to/jquery.tablesorter.js"></script>
4
5<s/cript type="text/javascript" src="/path/to/ /jquery.tablesorter.pager.js"></script>
6
7<link rel="stylesheet" href="css/blue.css" type="text/css" />

Next we will create a fake query, so that we have some records to display.

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1<!--- Create a test query. --->
2<cfset variables.qOptions = QueryNew( "id, name, color" ) />
3
4<cfset QueryAddRow( variables.qOptions ) />
5<cfset variables.qOptions[ "id" ][ variables.qOptions.RecordCount ] = "1" />
6<cfset variables.qOptions[ "name" ][ variables.qOptions.RecordCount ] = "Value 1" />
7<cfset variables.qOptions[ "color" ][ variables.qOptions.RecordCount ] = "Red" />
8
9<cfset QueryAddRow( variables.qOptions ) />
10<cfset variables.qOptions[ "id" ][ variables.qOptions.RecordCount ] = "2" />
11<cfset variables.qOptions[ "name" ][ variables.qOptions.RecordCount ] = "Value 2" />
12<cfset variables.qOptions[ "color" ][ variables.qOptions.RecordCount ] = "Green" />
13
14<cfset QueryAddRow( variables.qOptions ) />
15<cfset variables.qOptions[ "id" ][ variables.qOptions.RecordCount ] = "3" />
16<cfset variables.qOptions[ "name" ][ variables.qOptions.RecordCount ] = "Value 3" />
17<cfset variables.qOptions[ "color" ][ variables.qOptions.RecordCount ] = "Blue" />
18
19<cfset QueryAddRow( variables.qOptions ) />
20<cfset variables.qOptions[ "id" ][ variables.qOptions.RecordCount ] = "4" />
21<cfset variables.qOptions[ "name" ][ variables.qOptions.RecordCount ] = "Value 4" />
22<cfset variables.qOptions[ "color" ][ variables.qOptions.RecordCount ] = "White" />

We have to change the way we build the table code slightly, as the JQuery plugin is expecting certain field naming conventions. Give your table a class name of tablesorter. This is the style that the JQuery is watching for.

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1<table class="tablesorter">
2    <thead>
3    <tr>
4        <cfoutput>
5        <cfloop list="#variables.qOptions.columnlist#" delimiters="," index="variables.index">
6            <th>#variables.index#</th>
7        </cfloop>
8        </cfoutput>
9    </tr>
10    </thead>

In the code above I am looping over the columnlist of the query to generate headings. I've had to change the headings to 'th' tags which I never normally use.

Next we can generate the table content, making sure it is inside a 'tbody' html tag. Simply loop over the query displaying all the results within td tags.

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1<tbody>
2        <cfoutput query="variables.qOptions">
3        <tr>
4            <td>#variables.qOptions.id#</td>
5            <td>#variables.qOptions.name#</td>
6            <td>#variables.qOptions.color#</td>
7        </tr>
8        </cfoutput>
9    </tbody>
10</table>

Lastly the pager plugin is looking for a div with a class of pager. Inside this div you place your paging controls, and the value of the page recordsets that you want to offset by.

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1<div id="pager" class="pager">
2    <form>
3        <img src="addons/pager/icons/first.png" class="first"/>
4        <img src="addons/pager/icons/prev.png" class="prev"/>
5        <input type="text" class="pagedisplay"/>
6        <img src="addons/pager/icons/next.png" class="next"/>
7        <img src="addons/pager/icons/last.png" class="last"/>
8        <select class="pagesize">
9            <option selected="selected" value="10">10</option>
10
11            <option value="20">20</option>
12            <option value="30">30</option>
13            <option value="40">40</option>
14        </select>
15    </form>
16</div>

This builds a one page table display that can paginate and sort with a single refresh.

A full example of this is here.

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