Table Plugin

Introduction

The TablePlugin gives extra control of table display:

• Allows sorting
• Changing table properties like border width, cell spacing and cell padding
• Changing background color and text color for header cells
• Changing background color and text color for data cells - colors can alternate
• Table attributes can be set and overridden in this order:
  • Default TABLEATTRIBUTES Plugin setting in this topic.
  • A TABLEATTRIBUTES preferences setting on site-level (TWikiPreferences) or web-level (any WebPreferences), e.g.
    • Set TABLEATTRIBUTES = tableborder="0" cellpadding="1" ...
  • Before a table using %TABLE{...}%
• Row spans

Sorting

Click on column heading text to sort by a column. Initial column will be sorted in descending order, click again to get ascending order. The type of data in the cell is determined automatically:

• date if format is:
  • dd MMM YYYY - hh:mm (MMM is Jan, Feb, etc.)
  • dd-MMM-YY or dd-MMM-YYYY (can be / or space in place of -) (MMM is Jan, Feb, etc)
• number is digits, with optional decimal point
• otherwise treated as text

Row spans

Table cells with a single caret indicate follow-up rows of multi-row spans. For example,

| One One | One Two | One Three |
| ^ | Two Two | Two Three |
| Three One | ^ | Three Three |

TablePlugin Global Settings

Plugin settings are stored as preferences variables. To reference a plugin setting write %<plugin>_<setting>%, for example, %INTERWIKIPLUGIN_SHORTDESCRIPTION%

• One line description, shown in the TextFormattingRules topic:
  • Set SHORTDESCRIPTION = Control attributes of tables and sorting of table columns

• Set DEBUG to 1 to get debug messages in data/debug.txt. Default: 0
  • Set DEBUG = 0

• Make all tables in a topic sortable. If this is set to all, all tables that have a header row (including those that do not have %TABLE before them) will be made sortable. If set to none, only tables with %TABLE will be sortable. Topic rendering is faster if this is set to none.
  • #Set SORT = none
  • Set SORT = all

• Default table attributes:
  • Set TABLEATTRIBUTES = tableborder="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" valign="top" headercolor="#ffffff" headerbg="#687684" headerbgsorted="#334455" databg="#ffffff,#edf4f9" databgsorted="#f1f7fc,#ddebf6" tablerules="all"

Table Attributes

Attributes are defined as a TABLEATTRIBUTES Plugin setting in this topic, a TABLEATTRIBUTES preferences setting, or on line before the table using %TABLE{...}%:

• Supported attributes:

  Argument	Comment	Default value	Example
  sort	Set table sorting by clicking headers "on" or "off".	unspecified	sort="on"
  initsort	Column to sort initially ("1" to number of columns).	unspecified	initsort="2"
  initdirection	Initial sorting direction for initsort, set to "up" (descending) or "down" (ascending).	unspecified	initdirection="up"
  disableallsort	Disable all sorting, both initsort and header sort. This is mainly used by plugins such as the EditTablePlugin to disable sorting in a table while editing the table.	unspecified	disableallsort="on"
  headerbg	Header cell background colour.	"#6b7f93"	headerbg="#999999"
  headerbgsorted	Header cell background colour of a sorted column.	the value of headerbg	headerbgsorted="#32596c"
  headercolor	Header cell text colour.	"#ffffff"	headercolor="#0000cc"
  databg	Data cell background colour, a comma separated list. Specify "none" for no colour, that is to use the colour/background of the page the table is on.	"#edf4f9,#ffffff"	databg="#f2f2f2,#ffffff"
  databgsorted	Data cell background colour of a sorted column; see databg.	the values of databg	databgsorted="#d4e8e4,#e5f5ea"
  datacolor	Data cell text colour, a comma separated list.	unspecified	datacolor="#0000CC, #000000"
  tableborder	Table border width (pixels).	"1"	tableborder="2"
  tableframe	Table frame, set to "void" (no sides), "above" (the top side only), "below" (the bottom side only), "hsides" (the top and bottom sides only), "lhs" (the left-hand side only), "rhs" (the right-hand side only), "vsides" (the right and left sides only), "box" (all four sides), "border" (all four sides).	unspecified	tableframe="hsides"
  tablerules	Table rules, set to "none" (no rules), "groups" (rules will appear between row groups and column groups only), "rows" (rules will appear between rows only), "cols" (rules will appear between columns only), "all" (rules will appear between all rows and columns).	unspecified	tablerules="rows"
  cellpadding	Cell padding (pixels).	"0"	cellpadding="0"
  cellspacing	Cell spacing (pixels).	"0"	cellspacing="3"
  cellborder	Cell border width (pixels).	unspecified	cellborder="0"
  valign	Vertical alignment of cells and headers, set to "top", "middle", "bottom" or "baseline".	unspecified	valign="top"
  headervalign	Vertical alignment of header cells; overrides valign.	unspecified	headervalign="top"
  datavalign	Vertical alignment of data cells; overrides valign.	unspecified	datavalign="top"
  headeralign	Header cell alignment, one value for all columns, or a comma separated list for different alignment of individual columns. Set to "left", "center", "right" or "justify". Overrides individual cell settings.	unspecified	headeralign="left,right"
  dataalign	Data cell alignment, one value for all columns, or a comma separated list for different alignment of individual columns. Set to "left", "center", "right" or "justify". Overrides individual cell settings.	unspecified	dataalign="center"
  tablewidth	Table width: Percentage of window width, or absolute pixel value.	unspecified	tablewidth="100%"
  columnwidths	Column widths: Comma delimited list of column widths, percentage or absolute pixel value.	unspecified	columnwidths="80%,20%"
  headerrows	Number of header rows to exclude from sort. (will be rendered in a HTML thead section)	"1"	headerrows="1"
  footerrows	Number of footer rows to exclude from sort. (will be rendered in a HTML tfoot section)	"0"	footerrows="1"
  id	Unique table identifier string, used for targeting a table with CSS.	tableN (where N is the table order number on the page)	id="userTable"
  summary	Table summary used by screenreaders: A summary of what the table presents. It should provide an orientation for someone who listens to the table.	unspecified	summary="List of subscribed users"
  caption	Table caption: A title that will be displayed just above the table.	unspecified	caption="Users"

The %TABLE{...}% settings override TABLEATTRIBUTES preferences settings, which override the TABLEATTRIBUTES Plugin settings.

The setting disableallsort is normally not used as a TABLE or TABLEATTRIBUTES setting. Plugins such as EditTablePlugin dynamically sets disableallsort to disable sorting while editing a table. For this to work it is important that EditTablePlugin runs before TablePlugin, which is the default. The setting sort can be overwritten by a URL parameter or hidden formfield of the same name. Plugins such as EditTablePlugin can use this to disable table header sorting while in edit mode.

Examples

Use of %TABLE{...}%

Line before table: %TABLE{ sort="on" tableborder="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="3" cellborder="0" headerbg="#D5CCB1" headercolor="#666666" databg="#FAF0D4, #F3DFA8" headerrows="2" footerrows="1" }%

Table with 4 digit year dates and no use of %TABLE{...}%

TablePlugin and CSS

Information for programmers.

TablePlugin implements the following precedence:

• the TABLEATTRIBUTE settings only write html styling, no CSS
• the TABLEATTRIBUTE settings can be overridden by a skin's CSS
• the TABLE tag attributes are converted to CSS styling, written in the head; these override any skin's CSS

CSS written by TablePlugin

Plugin Installation Instructions

Note: This plugin is pre-installed with your TWiki release. You should not have to install it other than to do an upgrade.

• For an automated installation, run the configure script and follow "Find More Extensions" in the in the Extensions section.

• Or, follow these manual installation steps:
  • Download the ZIP file from the Plugins home (see below).
  • Unzip TablePlugin.zip in your twiki installation directory. Content:

    File:	Description:
    data/TWiki/TablePlugin.txt	Plugin topic
    data/TWiki/VarTABLE.txt	TABLE variable documentation topic
    lib/TWiki/Plugins/TablePlugin.pm	Plugin Perl module
    lib/TWiki/Plugins/TablePlugin/Core.pm	Plugin core module

  • Set the ownership of the extracted directories and files to the webserver user.
  • Make sure the dependencies listed in the table below are resolved. None

• Plugin configuration and testing:
  • Run the configure script, enable the plugin in the Plugins section
  • Configure the plugin: See plugin settings above.
  • Check above example if the table renders as expected
  • Try click on heading to sort. Other tables should also be sortable

Plugin Info

Related Topics: VarTABLE, TWikiPreferences, TWikiPlugins, StandardColors