deferRender - Render missing nodes dynamically

lpenadiaz

Basically, this is just an updated question to this thread: https://datatables.net/forums/discussion/14443/render-after-deferrender

I have almost the same need. I'm using deferRender to speed up the loading time, but if the user clicks a button, I need to be able to generate all missing nodes so I can loop through them using .rows().nodes(). Is there any way to make this happen?

kthorngren

Is there something special in the .rows().nodes() that wouldn't be in the original data retrieved?

Maybe you can loop through the original data to get or set the information needed.

Please provide more specifics of what you want to do. Maybe someone can give you some ideas.

Kevin

allan

At the moment the only way to get DataTables to generate the "missing" nodes is to have it draw them on screen. There isn't (currently) an API to have it generate rows on demand, other than to have them displayed and then draw the table.

Allan

lpenadiaz

Thanks for your replies.

@kthorngren, yes. I'm using columnDefs to format the result. Also, I'm using the same result set (from ajax) in multiple pages with different Datatables initialization (which decide what and how should be displayed). This logic highly changes the actual data stored in .rows().data(). I could implement the same logic while looping through the data, but then the code will be harder to maintain (since we'll have the conditions and formatting in two places instead of one).

@allan, I understand. But maybe you could point me to somewhere to have an idea on how to code a workaround to make it happen? In the thread mentioned in my question, you referenced the code in the old TableTools extension, but the code is no longer available.

Either way, thank you both for your answers.

allan

This is where DataTables does it internally on draw.

So what you could do is have an API plug-in which will do it. In fact, here it is as calling the internal methods isn't obvious (or documented since they are internal methods!):

$.fn.dataTable.Api.register( 'rows().generate()', function () {
    return this.iterator( 'row', function ( context, index ) {
      context.oApi._fnCreateTr( context, index );
    } );
} );

http://live.datatables.net/xawepede/1/edit

You can use row selectors with it if you only want to generate nodes for specific rows as well.

Allan

lpenadiaz

This is perfect! Exactly what I needed.

Thanks!