To emulate the Excel interface as closely as possible, KeyTable and AutoFill can be used on the same table as shown here. This can be particularly beneficial, for example, when transitioning staff from Excel spreadsheets to your own online application - providing an interface they are familiar with.
As of KeyTable 2.4 the Excel like interface is even more "Excel like" through its support for copy and paste of data - simply focus on the cell you want to copy or paste data from or to, and use the standard copy / paste commands (via the Edit menu, context menu or keyboard).
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 67 68 69 70 | 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" } ] } ); var table = $( '#example' ).DataTable( { dom: "Bfrtip" , ajax: "../../controllers/staff.php" , order: [[ 1, 'asc' ]], columns: [ { data: null , defaultContent: '' , className: 'select-checkbox' , orderable: false }, { data: "first_name" }, { data: "last_name" }, { data: "position" }, { data: "office" }, { data: "start_date" }, { data: "salary" , render: $.fn.dataTable.render.number( ',' , '.' , 0, '$' ) } ], autoFill: { columns: ':not(:first-child)' , editor: editor }, keys: { columns: ':not(:first-child)' , editor: editor }, select: { style: 'os' , selector: 'td:first-child' , blurable: true }, buttons: [ { extend: "create" , editor: editor }, { extend: "edit" , editor: editor }, { extend: "remove" , editor: editor } ] } ); } ); |
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.
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
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