bAutoWidth

peterkronenberg

What exactly is bAutoWidth supposed to be doing? Yes, I know that it calculates the width of each column, but what is supposed to be the functional difference between using bAutoWidth and not. Assume that I am not specifying the width of the columns myself. The browser already calculates the widths for you, doesn't it? In fact, you allow the browser to do that on a temporary table so you can copy those widths yourself. So what exactly is supposed to be the intent of using bAutoWidth?

allan

If you try disabling bAutoWidth on a page which is using pagination and then flick between pages, you'll see what auto width is trying to do. Basically it fixes the column widths to what should ideally be the optimal width for the table contents as a whole, not just want is shown on any one page. If you try the experiment then you'll see the column widths automatically changing to be optimal for each displayed page, not for the table as a whole.

Allan