Datatables | Blair Williams

Datatables is a Rails 3 plugin that enables the easy creation of dynamic datatable views on top of any ActiveRecord model. Datatables provides a simple helper that can be utilized in the view to automatically display a dynamic view on top of a model. Datatables handles the entire front end and backend support to do this.

Installation

To install datatables to your rails project, follow these simple steps:
1. Make sure your project is using the ‘jquery-rails’ plugin.
2. Add the following line to your Gemfile:

gem 'datatables', :git => 'git://github.com/Caseproof/datatables.git'

3. Run bundle install
4. Run rails generate datatables:install
5. Add the following lines to your layout file after javascript_include_tag :defaults
6. Add the Datatable helper mixin to your ApplicationHelper (app/helpers/application_helper.rb) like so:

module ApplicationHelper
include Datatables::Helpers
end

Example

With datatables it’s easy to add rich datatables to your views that correspond with your active record models.

There is a lovely helper that you can use to render your datatable that takes in a whole host of options. Unfortunately, there’s still quite a bit of work to do with these options to handle every scenario but here’s what it support so far:
Database table:

The following examples will use the following database table:

mysql> desc companies;
+-------------+--------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| Field | Type | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+-------------+--------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| id | int(11) | NO | PRI | NULL | auto_increment |
| name | varchar(255) | YES | MUL | NULL | |
| slug | varchar(255) | YES | MUL | NULL | |
| domain | varchar(255) | YES | MUL | NULL | |
| category_id | int(11) | NO | MUL | NULL | |
| created_at | datetime | YES | | NULL | |
| updated_at | datetime | YES | | NULL | |
+-------------+--------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+

Standard datatable

The first argument to the datatable helper is the name of the model or an array of model & scope. The second argument is a hash of column names & options.

{ :type => ‘string',
:label => ‘Name',
:width => ‘20%' },
:slug => { :type => ‘string',
:label => ‘Slug',
:width => ‘15%' },
:domain => { :type => ‘string',
:label => ‘Domain',
:width => ‘15%' }
}) %>

Datatable with a link to edit

Note that the edit link path utilizes the :id field in the database table to automatically insert the correct id on a row by row basis:

{ :type => ‘hidden' },
:name => { :type => ‘link',
:label => ‘Name',
:link => edit_admin_company_path(:id),
:replace => ‘id',
:width => ‘50%' },
:slug => { :type => ‘string',
:label => ‘Slug',
:width => ‘25%' },
:domain => { :type => ‘string',
:label => ‘Domain',
:width => ‘25%' }
}) %>

Scoped datatable (now we’re using the ‘dot_org_domains’ that can be found in the Company model):

Association columns

{ :type => ‘hidden' },
:name => { :type => ‘link',
:label => ‘Name',
:link => edit_admin_company_path(:id),
:replace => ‘id',
:width => ‘40%' },
:slug => { :type => ‘string',
:label => ‘Slug',
:width => ‘20%' },
:domain => { :type => ‘string',
:label => ‘Domain',
:width => ‘20%' },
:category_name => { :type => ‘string',
:label => ‘Category',
:column => ‘categories.name',
:width => ‘20%',
:class => ‘center' }

}) %>

Why use this plugin?

It is the easiest way to integrate dynamic datatables using the jQuery datatables plugin into your rails app.

Version history

Version 1.0.0

First Release

Contribute

If you’ve got some ideas for datatables let me know and, even better, if you’ve made some enhancements to the code send me a pull request!

Support

Bug report? Faulty/incomplete documentation? Feature request? Please post an issue on ‘github.com/Caseproof/metafy/issues’. If its urgent, please contact me from my website at ‘blairwilliams.com/contact‘