Static display controller

This example demonstrates the use of the static display controller. By default Editor will use a lightbox (i.e. a modal) to display the form, but this can be changed with display, and the build in static option can be used to instruct Editor to display the form anywhere on the page (note that display is used if a string is given to display).

In this example, static is used to show the editing form next to the host DataTable and editing a row is activated by simply clicking on it to select (you could readily use a link / icon in the table to trigger editing if you prefer).

In addition to editing existing rows, the form has an extra button through the buttons option in form-options to allow a row to be deleted, and a new row can be added though an event listener that calls create().

Name	Salary
Name	Salary

Select a row
to edit or delete

Or add a new row

Javascript
HTML
CSS
Ajax
Server-side script
Comments

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

const editor = new DataTable.Editor({
	ajax: '../php/staff.php',
	table: '#myTable',
	display: '#myForm',
	fields: [
		{
			label: 'First name:',
			name: 'first_name'
		},
		{
			label: 'Last name:',
			name: 'last_name'
		},
		{
			label: 'Position:',
			name: 'position'
		},
		{
			label: 'Salary:',
			name: 'salary'
		}
	]
});

const table = new DataTable('#myTable', {
	ajax: '../php/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: 'salary' }
	],
	select: true,
	pagingType: 'simple',
	lengthChange: false
});

// When a row is selected, trigger editing on it.
table
	.on('select', function () {
		let indexes = table.rows({ selected: true }).indexes();

		// Activate editing, giving a button that can be used to delete the
		// target row(s)
		editor.edit(indexes, {
			title: 'Edit row',
			buttons: [
				'Save changes',
				{
					label: 'Delete',
					fn: () => editor.remove(indexes, false).submit()
				}
			]
		});
	})
	.on('deselect', function () {
		editor.close();
	});

// Event handler to trigger the addition of a new row
document.querySelector('p.add-new a').addEventListener('click', function (e) {
	e.preventDefault();

	editor.create({
		title: 'Create new row',
		buttons: [
			'Save',
			{
				label: 'Cancel',
				fn: () => editor.close()
			}
		]
	});
});

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:

div.split-columns {
	display: flex;
	align-items: flex-start;
	gap: 1em;
}

div.split-columns > div {
	width: 50%;
}

#myForm {
	display: flex;
	justify-content: center;
}

#myForm > div.not-editing {
	text-align: center;
}

#myForm div.DTE {
	width: 100%;
}

#myForm div.DTE div.DTE_Header,
#myForm div.DTE div.DTE_Footer {
	background: transparent !important;
	border: none !important;
}

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.

Static display controller

Other examples

Simple initialisation

Advanced initialisation

Triggering editing

DataTables as an input

Dates and time

Dropdown input types

DataTables extensions

Inline editing

Bubble editing

API

Standalone

Styling

Plug-ins