The Buttons extension for DataTables is used by the majority of the Editor examples to provide row selection functionality and the New, Edit and Delete buttons at the top of the table. However, Buttons' functionality is not limited to providing simple buttons for Editor - it also has support for data export buttons such as copying the table data to clipboard, saving to a file or showing the table's data for printing.
This example shows how the buttons
option presented by Buttons can be used to very easily add export buttons to a table which Editor is operating on, while still retaining full editing control. In
this case a drop down button with four export buttons is added, and an individual print button.
| Name | Position | Office | Extn. | Start date | Salary |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name | Position | Office | Extn. | Start date | Salary |
The Javascript shown below is used to initialise the table shown in this example:
var editor; // use a global for the submit and return data rendering in the examples
$(document).ready(function() {
editor = new $.fn.dataTable.Editor( {
ajax: "../../controllers/staff.php",
table: "#example",
fields: [ {
label: "First name:",
name: "first_name"
}, {
label: "Last name:",
name: "last_name"
}, {
label: "Position:",
name: "position"
}, {
label: "Office:",
name: "office"
}, {
label: "Extension:",
name: "extn"
}, {
label: "Start date:",
name: "start_date",
type: "datetime"
}, {
label: "Salary:",
name: "salary"
}
]
} );
$('#example').DataTable( {
dom: 'Bfrtip',
ajax: "../../controllers/staff.php",
columns: [
{ data: null, render: function ( data, type, row ) {
// Combine the first and last names into a single table field
return data.first_name+' '+data.last_name;
} },
{ data: "position" },
{ data: "office" },
{ data: "extn" },
{ data: "start_date" },
{ data: "salary", render: $.fn.dataTable.render.number( ',', '.', 0, '$' ) }
],
select: true,
colReorder: true,
buttons: [
{ extend: 'create', editor: editor },
{ extend: 'edit', editor: editor },
{ extend: 'remove', editor: editor },
{
extend: 'collection',
text: 'Export',
buttons: [
'copy',
'excel',
'csv',
'pdf',
'print'
]
}
]
} );
} );
In addition to the above code, the following Javascript library files are loaded for use in this example:
The HTML shown below is the raw HTML table element, before it has been enhanced by DataTables:
This example uses a little bit of additional CSS beyond what is loaded from the library files (below), in order to correctly display the table. The additional CSS used is shown below:
a.buttons-collection {
margin-left: 1em;
}
The following CSS library files are loaded for use in this example to provide the styling of the table:
This table loads data by Ajax. The latest data that has been loaded is shown below. This data will update automatically as any additional data is loaded.
The script used to perform the server-side processing for this table is shown below. Please note that this is just an example script using PHP. Server-side processing scripts can be written in any language, using the protocol described in the DataTables documentation.