Editor example Export buttons

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.

NamePositionOfficeExtn.Start dateSalary
Loading...
NamePositionOfficeExtn.Start dateSalary
Showing 0 to 0 of 0 entries

The Javascript shown below is used to initialise the table shown in this example:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
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:

Editor submits and retrieves information by Ajax requests. The two blocks below show the data that Editor submits and receives, to and from the server. This is updated live as you interact with Editor so you can see what is submitted.

Submitted data:

The following shows the data that has been submitted to the server when a request is made to add, edit or delete data from the table.

// No data yet submitted

Server response:

The following shows the data that has been returned by the server in response to the data submitted on the left and is then acted upon.

// No data yet received