Issue with column's width when server-side processing enabled

Thib

Hi,

The behaviour is a bit strange : whenever I interact with the table (paging, sorting, ...), the column's width evolves, depending on the cell's content.

Is it a known issue ? Is there any workaround ?

Here are the debug data : http://debug.datatables.net/oroluq

Thanks !

allan

It will change if the table can't show the new content in the same layout as the old layout. Exactly why that is will depend upon the content. Can you link to a test case?

Allan

Thib

I don't quite understand the layout thing :-)
Do you mean there's nothing strange as Datatables cannot compute each column's max width (because of Data are still not loaded) ?

For the test case, it will be a bit hard (web service that produces JSON and web application deployed locally). Maybe you have some JSON data available through the Internet so I could try to write a jsfiddle ?

Thib

I just tested the Nigel's trick found here : http://datatables.net/forums/discussion/4885/column-width-not-refreshed-after-ajax-load./p1

[code] ...
"fnInitComplete": function() {
this.fnAdjustColumnSizing(true);
},
[/code]

and the columns resizing is much less ugly :-)

But, I still don't understand why there is still some changes in the column's width (a few pixels only) when the table is redrawn (after paging for instance), whereas there remain lots of space in each columns. Any idea ?

Thanks !

allan

Browser layout of tables is a dark art! The different content will be causing the realignment of the content, and that is decided but he browser - despite the fact that I've tried to set the width of the columns in DataTables. The browser can override that. The only way to get pixel perfect alignment is to use `table-layout: fixed` - and generally you don't want to do that!

Allan

Thib

Thanks Allan !

So, using fnAdjustColumnSizing(true) in fnInitComplete seems to be the better solution.
Is there any cons using it ? Maybe performance issues ?

allan

Just a performance hit.

To be honest, DataTables should perhaps do that automatically. I'll have a think about adding it in :-)

Allan

Thib

Thanks for the tip Allan !
So I'll add it by default when server-side processing is enabled :-)

Regards,
Thibault.