Blog
On the DataTables blog you will find news, announcements and tutorials about DataTables and its suite of extensions. New posts are published (usually!) monthly, with additional news items in between.
8th May 2018
SearchFade
Hi everyone, I'm Colin and I joined the DataTables team late last year to head-up testing and to provide customer support by helping to answer questions in the DataTables forum.
A recent question asked if DataTables, instead of only showing the matching filter results, could show both the matching and unmatched records together with some colouring or shading on the rows to differentiate between the two. While not a feature that is available out-of-the-box with DataTables, by using its extensive customisability (callbacks and API methods) the SearchFade plug-in has been created.
As you can see in the example below, unmatched filter results are given a reduced opacity by being assigned the notMatched CSS class. This could easily be changed to display a different font or a different background colour by modifying that class. SearchFade is fully compatible with all other DataTables features and customisations, as it only affects the rows currently being displayed.
| Name | Position | Office | Salary |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tiger Nixon | System Architect | Edinburgh | $320,800 |
| Garrett Winters | Accountant | Tokyo | $170,750 |
| Ashton Cox | Junior Technical Author | San Francisco | $86,000 |
| Cedric Kelly | Senior Javascript Developer | Edinburgh | $433,060 |
| Airi Satou | Accountant | Tokyo | $162,700 |
| Brielle Williamson | Integration Specialist | New York | $372,000 |
| Herrod Chandler | Sales Assistant | San Francisco | $137,500 |
| Rhona Davidson | Integration Specialist | Tokyo | $327,900 |
| Colleen Hurst | Javascript Developer | San Francisco | $205,500 |
| Sonya Frost | Software Engineer | Edinburgh | $103,600 |
| Jena Gaines | Office Manager | London | $90,560 |
| Quinn Flynn | Support Lead | Edinburgh | $342,000 |
| Charde Marshall | Regional Director | San Francisco | $470,600 |
| Haley Kennedy | Senior Marketing Designer | London | $313,500 |
| Tatyana Fitzpatrick | Regional Director | London | $385,750 |
| Michael Silva | Marketing Designer | London | $198,500 |
| Paul Byrd | Chief Financial Officer (CFO) | New York | $725,000 |
| Gloria Little | Systems Administrator | New York | $237,500 |
| Bradley Greer | Software Engineer | London | $132,000 |
| Dai Rios | Personnel Lead | Edinburgh | $217,500 |
| Jenette Caldwell | Development Lead | New York | $345,000 |
| Yuri Berry | Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) | New York | $675,000 |
| Caesar Vance | Pre-Sales Support | New York | $106,450 |
| Doris Wilder | Sales Assistant | Sidney | $85,600 |
| Angelica Ramos | Chief Executive Officer (CEO) | London | $1,200,000 |
| Gavin Joyce | Developer | Edinburgh | $92,575 |
| Jennifer Chang | Regional Director | Singapore | $357,650 |
| Brenden Wagner | Software Engineer | San Francisco | $206,850 |
| Fiona Green | Chief Operating Officer (COO) | San Francisco | $850,000 |
| Shou Itou | Regional Marketing | Tokyo | $163,000 |
| Michelle House | Integration Specialist | Sidney | $95,400 |
| Suki Burks | Developer | London | $114,500 |
| Prescott Bartlett | Technical Author | London | $145,000 |
| Gavin Cortez | Team Leader | San Francisco | $235,500 |
| Martena Mccray | Post-Sales support | Edinburgh | $324,050 |
| Unity Butler | Marketing Designer | San Francisco | $85,675 |
| Howard Hatfield | Office Manager | San Francisco | $164,500 |
| Hope Fuentes | Secretary | San Francisco | $109,850 |
| Vivian Harrell | Financial Controller | San Francisco | $452,500 |
| Timothy Mooney | Office Manager | London | $136,200 |
| Jackson Bradshaw | Director | New York | $645,750 |
| Olivia Liang | Support Engineer | Singapore | $234,500 |
| Bruno Nash | Software Engineer | London | $163,500 |
| Sakura Yamamoto | Support Engineer | Tokyo | $139,575 |
| Thor Walton | Developer | New York | $98,540 |
| Finn Camacho | Support Engineer | San Francisco | $87,500 |
| Serge Baldwin | Data Coordinator | Singapore | $138,575 |
| Zenaida Frank | Software Engineer | New York | $125,250 |
| Zorita Serrano | Software Engineer | San Francisco | $115,000 |
| Jennifer Acosta | Junior Javascript Developer | Edinburgh | $75,650 |
| Cara Stevens | Sales Assistant | New York | $145,600 |
| Hermione Butler | Regional Director | London | $356,250 |
| Lael Greer | Systems Administrator | London | $103,500 |
| Jonas Alexander | Developer | San Francisco | $86,500 |
| Shad Decker | Regional Director | Edinburgh | $183,000 |
| Michael Bruce | Javascript Developer | Singapore | $183,000 |
| Donna Snider | Customer Support | New York | $112,000 |
Vertical scroll fitting
Back in 2015 I introduced a plug-in for DataTables which provides the ability to dynamically alter the page length of a table to have it fit inside a container. This works well when paging is enabled and scrolling is disabled, but vertical fitting of the DataTable also works quite naturally with scrolling.
In this post I will introduce an equivalent plug-in for DataTables when scrolling is enabled - the end result is shown below:
| Name | Position | Office | Salary |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tiger Nixon | System Architect | Edinburgh | $320,800 |
| Garrett Winters | Accountant | Tokyo | $170,750 |
| Ashton Cox | Junior Technical Author | San Francisco | $86,000 |
| Cedric Kelly | Senior Javascript Developer | Edinburgh | $433,060 |
| Airi Satou | Accountant | Tokyo | $162,700 |
| Brielle Williamson | Integration Specialist | New York | $372,000 |
| Herrod Chandler | Sales Assistant | San Francisco | $137,500 |
| Rhona Davidson | Integration Specialist | Tokyo | $327,900 |
| Colleen Hurst | Javascript Developer | San Francisco | $205,500 |
| Sonya Frost | Software Engineer | Edinburgh | $103,600 |
| Jena Gaines | Office Manager | London | $90,560 |
| Quinn Flynn | Support Lead | Edinburgh | $342,000 |
| Charde Marshall | Regional Director | San Francisco | $470,600 |
| Haley Kennedy | Senior Marketing Designer | London | $313,500 |
| Tatyana Fitzpatrick | Regional Director | London | $385,750 |
| Michael Silva | Marketing Designer | London | $198,500 |
| Paul Byrd | Chief Financial Officer (CFO) | New York | $725,000 |
| Gloria Little | Systems Administrator | New York | $237,500 |
| Bradley Greer | Software Engineer | London | $132,000 |
| Dai Rios | Personnel Lead | Edinburgh | $217,500 |
| Jenette Caldwell | Development Lead | New York | $345,000 |
| Yuri Berry | Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) | New York | $675,000 |
| Caesar Vance | Pre-Sales Support | New York | $106,450 |
| Doris Wilder | Sales Assistant | Sidney | $85,600 |
| Angelica Ramos | Chief Executive Officer (CEO) | London | $1,200,000 |
| Gavin Joyce | Developer | Edinburgh | $92,575 |
| Jennifer Chang | Regional Director | Singapore | $357,650 |
| Brenden Wagner | Software Engineer | San Francisco | $206,850 |
| Fiona Green | Chief Operating Officer (COO) | San Francisco | $850,000 |
| Shou Itou | Regional Marketing | Tokyo | $163,000 |
| Michelle House | Integration Specialist | Sidney | $95,400 |
| Suki Burks | Developer | London | $114,500 |
| Prescott Bartlett | Technical Author | London | $145,000 |
| Gavin Cortez | Team Leader | San Francisco | $235,500 |
| Martena Mccray | Post-Sales support | Edinburgh | $324,050 |
| Unity Butler | Marketing Designer | San Francisco | $85,675 |
| Howard Hatfield | Office Manager | San Francisco | $164,500 |
| Hope Fuentes | Secretary | San Francisco | $109,850 |
| Vivian Harrell | Financial Controller | San Francisco | $452,500 |
| Timothy Mooney | Office Manager | London | $136,200 |
| Jackson Bradshaw | Director | New York | $645,750 |
| Olivia Liang | Support Engineer | Singapore | $234,500 |
| Bruno Nash | Software Engineer | London | $163,500 |
| Sakura Yamamoto | Support Engineer | Tokyo | $139,575 |
| Thor Walton | Developer | New York | $98,540 |
| Finn Camacho | Support Engineer | San Francisco | $87,500 |
| Serge Baldwin | Data Coordinator | Singapore | $138,575 |
| Zenaida Frank | Software Engineer | New York | $125,250 |
| Zorita Serrano | Software Engineer | San Francisco | $115,000 |
| Jennifer Acosta | Junior Javascript Developer | Edinburgh | $75,650 |
| Cara Stevens | Sales Assistant | New York | $145,600 |
| Hermione Butler | Regional Director | London | $356,250 |
| Lael Greer | Systems Administrator | London | $103,500 |
| Jonas Alexander | Developer | San Francisco | $86,500 |
| Shad Decker | Regional Director | Edinburgh | $183,000 |
| Michael Bruce | Javascript Developer | Singapore | $183,000 |
| Donna Snider | Customer Support | New York | $112,000 |
Click and drag me!
Experiment: SearchPane
Normally when I release new software for DataTables, I'll build it in a way that suits my own needs, generalising where I think it suitable, and then publish it and iterate from there. However, this time I'd like to take a slightly different approach and introduce a new plug-in for DataTables, called SearchPane, before including it in the DataTables extensions. This is both to see if there is interest in the features it provides and to request feedback for things that you would like to see modified / improved / added / removed / etc.
First things first - what is SearchPane? Quite simply it is a column filter interface for DataTables. It presents a list of values that can be found in a column, displaying them for an end user to be able to click, searching the table for matching data. It is a column OR based filter - i.e. adding multiple options will display the rows which match any of those data points.
Let's take a look at it in action:
| Name | Position | Office | Age | Start date | Salary |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tiger Nixon | System Architect | Edinburgh | 61 | 2011/04/25 | $320,800 |
| Garrett Winters | Accountant | Tokyo | 63 | 2011/07/25 | $170,750 |
| Ashton Cox | Junior Technical Author | San Francisco | 66 | 2009/01/12 | $86,000 |
| Cedric Kelly | Senior Javascript Developer | Edinburgh | 22 | 2012/03/29 | $433,060 |
| Airi Satou | Accountant | Tokyo | 33 | 2008/11/28 | $162,700 |
| Brielle Williamson | Integration Specialist | New York | 61 | 2012/12/02 | $372,000 |
| Herrod Chandler | Sales Assistant | San Francisco | 59 | 2012/08/06 | $137,500 |
| Rhona Davidson | Integration Specialist | Tokyo | 55 | 2010/10/14 | $327,900 |
| Colleen Hurst | Javascript Developer | San Francisco | 39 | 2009/09/15 | $205,500 |
| Sonya Frost | Software Engineer | Edinburgh | 23 | 2008/12/13 | $103,600 |
| Jena Gaines | Office Manager | London | 30 | 2008/12/19 | $90,560 |
| Quinn Flynn | Support Lead | Edinburgh | 22 | 2013/03/03 | $342,000 |
| Charde Marshall | Regional Director | San Francisco | 36 | 2008/10/16 | $470,600 |
| Haley Kennedy | Senior Marketing Designer | London | 43 | 2012/12/18 | $313,500 |
| Tatyana Fitzpatrick | Regional Director | London | 19 | 2010/03/17 | $385,750 |
| Michael Silva | Marketing Designer | London | 66 | 2012/11/27 | $198,500 |
| Paul Byrd | Chief Financial Officer (CFO) | New York | 64 | 2010/06/09 | $725,000 |
| Gloria Little | Systems Administrator | New York | 59 | 2009/04/10 | $237,500 |
| Bradley Greer | Software Engineer | London | 41 | 2012/10/13 | $132,000 |
| Dai Rios | Personnel Lead | Edinburgh | 35 | 2012/09/26 | $217,500 |
| Jenette Caldwell | Development Lead | New York | 30 | 2011/09/03 | $345,000 |
| Yuri Berry | Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) | New York | 40 | 2009/06/25 | $675,000 |
| Caesar Vance | Pre-Sales Support | New York | 21 | 2011/12/12 | $106,450 |
| Doris Wilder | Sales Assistant | Sidney | 23 | 2010/09/20 | $85,600 |
| Angelica Ramos | Chief Executive Officer (CEO) | London | 47 | 2009/10/09 | $1,200,000 |
| Gavin Joyce | Developer | Edinburgh | 42 | 2010/12/22 | $92,575 |
| Jennifer Chang | Regional Director | Singapore | 28 | 2010/11/14 | $357,650 |
| Brenden Wagner | Software Engineer | San Francisco | 28 | 2011/06/07 | $206,850 |
| Fiona Green | Chief Operating Officer (COO) | San Francisco | 48 | 2010/03/11 | $850,000 |
| Shou Itou | Regional Marketing | Tokyo | 20 | 2011/08/14 | $163,000 |
| Michelle House | Integration Specialist | Sidney | 37 | 2011/06/02 | $95,400 |
| Suki Burks | Developer | London | 53 | 2009/10/22 | $114,500 |
| Prescott Bartlett | Technical Author | London | 27 | 2011/05/07 | $145,000 |
| Gavin Cortez | Team Leader | San Francisco | 22 | 2008/10/26 | $235,500 |
| Martena Mccray | Post-Sales support | Edinburgh | 46 | 2011/03/09 | $324,050 |
| Unity Butler | Marketing Designer | San Francisco | 47 | 2009/12/09 | $85,675 |
| Howard Hatfield | Office Manager | San Francisco | 51 | 2008/12/16 | $164,500 |
| Hope Fuentes | Secretary | San Francisco | 41 | 2010/02/12 | $109,850 |
| Vivian Harrell | Financial Controller | San Francisco | 62 | 2009/02/14 | $452,500 |
| Timothy Mooney | Office Manager | London | 37 | 2008/12/11 | $136,200 |
| Jackson Bradshaw | Director | New York | 65 | 2008/09/26 | $645,750 |
| Olivia Liang | Support Engineer | Singapore | 64 | 2011/02/03 | $234,500 |
| Bruno Nash | Software Engineer | London | 38 | 2011/05/03 | $163,500 |
| Sakura Yamamoto | Support Engineer | Tokyo | 37 | 2009/08/19 | $139,575 |
| Thor Walton | Developer | New York | 61 | 2013/08/11 | $98,540 |
| Finn Camacho | Support Engineer | San Francisco | 47 | 2009/07/07 | $87,500 |
| Serge Baldwin | Data Coordinator | Singapore | 64 | 2012/04/09 | $138,575 |
| Zenaida Frank | Software Engineer | New York | 63 | 2010/01/04 | $125,250 |
| Zorita Serrano | Software Engineer | San Francisco | 56 | 2012/06/01 | $115,000 |
| Jennifer Acosta | Junior Javascript Developer | Edinburgh | 43 | 2013/02/01 | $75,650 |
| Cara Stevens | Sales Assistant | New York | 46 | 2011/12/06 | $145,600 |
| Hermione Butler | Regional Director | London | 47 | 2011/03/21 | $356,250 |
| Lael Greer | Systems Administrator | London | 21 | 2009/02/27 | $103,500 |
| Jonas Alexander | Developer | San Francisco | 30 | 2010/07/14 | $86,500 |
| Shad Decker | Regional Director | Edinburgh | 51 | 2008/11/13 | $183,000 |
| Michael Bruce | Javascript Developer | Singapore | 29 | 2011/06/27 | $183,000 |
| Donna Snider | Customer Support | New York | 27 | 2011/01/25 | $112,000 |
| Name | Position | Office | Age | Start date | Salary |
You can also see this example on its own and with a vertical display.
Historic blog posts
- Queuing changes in Editor 24th Oct 2017
- Cascading lists in Editor 1st Sep 2017
- Editor and NPM 31st Aug 2017
- Deep linking into DataTables 24th Jul 2017
- Always visible editing panel 30th Jun 2017
- Iterators in DataTables 31st May 2017
- RowGroup - new extension 7th Apr 2017
- Ajax loaded row details 31st Mar 2017
- Locale based sorting 28th Feb 2017
- Search highlighting with mark.js 19th Jan 2017
- Sorting with absolute positioned data 23rd Dec 2016
- Editor 1.6 16th Dec 2016
- Dynamic enum sorting 16th Jun 2016
- Spring updates - 2016 24th May 2016
- Parent / child editing with Editor 25th Mar 2016
- Ellipsis renderer 26th Feb 2016
- Generator update 21st Jan 2016
- Download statistics 31st Dec 2015
- NPM and Bower 9th Nov 2015
- Editor's server-side events 2nd Oct 2015
- Multi-row bulk editing 11th Sep 2015
- Update extravaganza 13th Aug 2015
- Git repo structure update 2nd Jun 2015
- DataTables 1.10.7 30th Apr 2015
- Vertical page fitting 10th Apr 2015
- Editor 1.4 / DataTables 1.10.5 12th Feb 2015
- Ultimate date / time sorting plug-in 18th Dec 2014
- Editor 1.4 beta - .NET 4th Dec 2014
- Table captions 7th Nov 2014
- Search result highlighting 22nd Oct 2014
- DataTables 1.10.3 9th Oct 2014
- Sliding child rows 2nd Oct 2014
- Alphabet input search - Part III 22nd Sep 2014
- Permanent inline checkboxes 9th Sep 2014
- Alphabet input search - Part II 2nd Sep 2014
- Alphabet input search - Part I 26th Aug 2014
- Business: UK VAT exchange rates 8th Aug 2014
- Duplicate buttons in Editor 25th Jul 2014
- Introducing Responsive for DataTables 16th Jul 2014
- DataTables 1.10.1, Editor 1.3.2 and more 15th Jul 2014
- Nominet Internet Awards shortlist 17th Jun 2014
- Font Awesome integration 6th Jun 2014
- Support and forums updates 26th May 2014
- DataTables 1.10.0 released 1st May 2014
- DataTables 1.10.0 release candidate 25th Apr 2014
- DataTables 1.10 beta 4th Feb 2014
- HTML 5 Clipboard and File APIs 31st Jan 2014
- JS Bin update 24th Jan 2014
- Orthogonal data 9th Jul 2012
- Inline editing 31st May 2012
- Introducing Editor 4th May 2012
- DataTables debugger 26th Feb 2012
- Twitter Bootstrap 2 1st Feb 2012
- Microsoft CDN 28th Jan 2012
- localStorage for state saving 16th Jan 2012
- Twitter Bootstrap 8th Dec 2011
- Site updates - JS Bin and more 1st Nov 2011
- Getting started with DataTables 27th Aug 2011
- DataTables support 29th Jun 2011
- Drill-down rows 19th Jun 2011
- Introducing Scroller 11th Jun 2011
- DataTables 1.8 4th Jun 2011
- Creating beautiful and functional tables with DataTables 10th May 2011
- Extended data source options with DataTables 1st May 2011