Answers

• allan Posts: 63,531Questions: 1Answers: 10,474 Site admin

  December 2017

  Hi Chris,

  Probably the easiest way around this is going to be to put the inputs in a footer and then use:

  table.dataTable tfoot {
      display: table-header-group;
  }
  

  to make the footer a header...

  Having said that, using orderCellsTop should work. You'd need to use:

  $( 'input', $('#myTable thead tr:eq(1)') )
  

  to put the input elements into the second row (since column().header() will refer to the header cell DataTables uses.

  Allan
• Restful Web Services Posts: 202Questions: 49Answers: 2

  December 2017 edited December 2017

  Hi Allan,

  I had previously tried:

  table.dataTable tfoot {
      display: table-header-group;
  }
  

  However, because I am using horizontal scrolling the <tfoot> element is put in its own <div>element meaning that the CSS rule has no effect, that is my understanding anyway.

  I have also tried your second idea but that didn't work for me either, although I probably made a mistake on my side.

  What has worked for me is to put a 'fake' thead search input bar in the header and simply pass the value entered to the footer search input. Like so:

  $("#filter_t input").keyup(function(event) {
          var id = event.target.id;
          var value = event.target.value;
          $('input#filter_b_'+id).prop("value", value).trigger("change");
  });
  

  Is that an okay-ish solution?

  Thanks

  Chris
• Restful Web Services Posts: 202Questions: 49Answers: 2

  December 2017

  Hi Allan,

  Thanks for your answer. I did previously attempt the use of:

  table.dataTable tfoot {
      display: table-header-group;
  }
  

  However, because I am also using horizontal scroll I believe that the <tfoot> element is not within the same <div> as the <thead> element and thus cannot be repositioned using CSS, that is my understanding anyway?

  I did try the second suggestion too but to no avail, although that was probably an error on my part.

  What is working for me is quite a rudimentary solution whereby I introduce a 'fake' header input bar at the top and simply pass the values from the thead input to the tfoot input which then carries out the actual filtering.

      $(document).on('keyup change', '#filter_t input', function(){
          var id = event.target.id;
          var value = event.target.value;
          $('input#filter_b_'+id).prop("value", value).trigger("change");
      });
  

  It seems to work okay?

  Chris
• allan Posts: 63,531Questions: 1Answers: 10,474 Site admin

  December 2017

  Ah yes, if you are using scrolling, that CSS hack isn't going to be useful - sorry.

  Just looking at my code above again, it would actually select all input elements in the header - not on a per column basis!

  $( 'input', $('#myTable thead tr:eq(1) th').eq( this.index() ) )
  

  Should be a little better.

  Allan
• Restful Web Services Posts: 202Questions: 49Answers: 2

  December 2017 edited December 2017

  Hi Allan,

  I have figured it out now. The problem as far as I understand was I have two columns at the start of my table which I exclude from having functionality like searching and ordering. Therefore my this.index() was always out by 2, i.e. it was 10 when it should have been 8. Secondly, I use the column visibility function to allow the user to show/hide columns, this also seems to affect the index value. So, I dynamically add an id to the thead input upon creation like this:

  $('#t_booking thead #filter_t td:not(.no-filter)').each(function(index){
  var title = $(this).text();
  $(this).html( '<input type="text" placeholder="Search '+ title +'" id="'+ index +'" />' );
   });
  

  Then I perform the search by introducing the colIdxvalue to the function and subtracting 2 from the value to take account of my non searchable columns at the start. I also use the.on() event handler to deal with hidden columns otherwise the search only works on inputs that exist when the page loads which excludes initially hidden columns.

  table.columns().every( function (colIdx) {
   var that = this;
  var id = colIdx-2;
  $(document).on('keyup change', 'input#'+id, function () {
  if(that.search() !== this.value){
  that.search( this.value.replace(/\+/g, '|'), true, false ).draw();
  }
  });
  }); 
  

  Finally, I use stateSave so to restore the search values to the individual columns I do the same:

  var state = table.state.loaded();
  if (state) {
  table.columns().eq(0).each(function (colIdx) {
  var colSearch = state.columns[colIdx].search;
  if (colSearch.search) {
  var id = colIdx-2;
  $('input#'+id).prop("value", colSearch.search.replace(/\|/g, '+'));
  }
  }); 
  table.draw();
  } 
  

  Is their a better way to solve this or does this seem reasonable?

  Thanks

  Chris
• allan Posts: 63,531Questions: 1Answers: 10,474 Site admin

  December 2017 Answer ✓

  Yes, column visibility would do it, if you are selecting from the document directly, without using a DataTables API method (which in this case you have to since it doesn't provide an API to get the second row of cells in the header...!).

  You can use columns.index() to convert between data index and visible index, which would save you having a "magic" 2 in your code, should you ever change the number of visible columns in future.

  Allan
• Restful Web Services Posts: 202Questions: 49Answers: 2

  December 2017

  Thanks