Previous / next editing buttons

Often when editing data in tables, you may wish to edit consecutive records. While in Editor it is perfectly feasible to save a row, then click to edit another, it can be more convenient to provide Previous and Next buttons as well as the regular save button to the end user. These two additional buttons also save the record that has been worked on, but rather than closing the editing display, they immediately load the next record in the table and present that for editing.

This example makes use of the selected button type, rather than the edit button found in the majority of other examples. This is because continuous row selection doesn't make much sense with multi-row editing, so by defining our own buttons.buttons.action method that will trigger the editing (edit()) we can decide if the previous / next buttons should be shown or not.

The previous / next buttons make use of the Select API (row().select() and row().deselect()) to manipulate the selected rows, and the Buttons API (button().trigger()) to trigger the next editing action.

A little bit of extra CSS styling is also used to visually group the three buttons.

Name	Position	Office	Extn.	Start date	Salary
Name	Position	Office	Extn.	Start date	Salary

Javascript
HTML
CSS
Ajax
Server-side script
Comments

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

var editor = new DataTable.Editor({
	ajax: '../php/staff.php',
	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'
		}
	],
	table: '#example'
});

// Buttons array definition to create previous, save and next buttons in
// an Editor form
var backNext = [
	{
		text: '&lt;',
		action: function (e) {
			// On submit, find the currently selected row and select the previous one
			this.submit(
				function () {
					var indexes = table.rows({ search: 'applied' }).indexes();
					var currentIndex = table.row({ selected: true }).index();
					var currentPosition = indexes.indexOf(currentIndex);

					if (currentPosition > 0) {
						table.row(currentIndex).deselect();
						table.row(indexes[currentPosition - 1]).select();
					}

					// Trigger editing through the button
					table.button(1).trigger();
				},
				null,
				null,
				false
			);
		}
	},
	'Save',
	{
		text: '&gt;',
		action: function (e) {
			// On submit, find the currently selected row and select the next one
			this.submit(
				function () {
					var indexes = table.rows({ search: 'applied' }).indexes();
					var currentIndex = table.row({ selected: true }).index();
					var currentPosition = indexes.indexOf(currentIndex);

					if (currentPosition < indexes.length - 1) {
						table.row(currentIndex).deselect();
						table.row(indexes[currentPosition + 1]).select();
					}

					// Trigger editing through the button
					table.button(1).trigger();
				},
				null,
				null,
				false
			);
		}
	}
];

var table = $('#example').DataTable({
	ajax: '../php/staff.php',
	columns: [
		{
			data: null,
			render: function (data, type, row) {
				// Combine the first and last names into a single table field
				return data.first_name + ' ' + data.last_name;
			}
		},
		{ data: 'position' },
		{ data: 'office' },
		{ data: 'extn' },
		{ data: 'start_date' },
		{ data: 'salary', render: DataTable.render.number(null, null, 0, '$') }
	],
	layout: {
		topStart: {
			buttons: [
				{ extend: 'create', editor: editor },
				{
					extend: 'selected',
					text: 'Edit',
					action: function () {
						var indexes = table.rows({ selected: true }).indexes();

						editor.edit(indexes, {
							title: 'Edit',
							buttons: indexes.length === 1 ? backNext : 'Save'
						});
					}
				},
				{ extend: 'remove', editor: editor }
			]
		}
	},
	select: true
});

const editor = new DataTable.Editor({
	ajax: '../php/staff.php',
	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'
		}
	],
	table: '#example'
});

// Buttons array definition to create previous, save and next buttons in
// an Editor form
const backNext = [
	{
		text: '&lt;',
		action: function (e) {
			// On submit, find the currently selected row and select the previous one
			this.submit(
				function () {
					let indexes = table.rows({ search: 'applied' }).indexes();
					let currentIndex = table.row({ selected: true }).index();
					let currentPosition = indexes.indexOf(currentIndex);

					if (currentPosition > 0) {
						table.row(currentIndex).deselect();
						table.row(indexes[currentPosition - 1]).select();
					}

					// Trigger editing through the button
					table.button(1).trigger();
				},
				null,
				null,
				false
			);
		}
	},
	'Save',
	{
		text: '&gt;',
		action: function (e) {
			// On submit, find the currently selected row and select the next one
			this.submit(
				function () {
					let indexes = table.rows({ search: 'applied' }).indexes();
					let currentIndex = table.row({ selected: true }).index();
					let currentPosition = indexes.indexOf(currentIndex);

					if (currentPosition < indexes.length - 1) {
						table.row(currentIndex).deselect();
						table.row(indexes[currentPosition + 1]).select();
					}

					// Trigger editing through the button
					table.button(1).trigger();
				},
				null,
				null,
				false
			);
		}
	}
];

const table = new DataTable('#example', {
	ajax: '../php/staff.php',
	columns: [
		{
			data: null,
			render: (data) => data.first_name + ' ' + data.last_name
		},
		{ data: 'position' },
		{ data: 'office' },
		{ data: 'extn' },
		{ data: 'start_date' },
		{ data: 'salary', render: DataTable.render.number(null, null, 0, '$') }
	],
	layout: {
		topStart: {
			buttons: [
				{ extend: 'create', editor: editor },
				{
					extend: 'selected',
					text: 'Edit',
					action: function () {
						var indexes = table.rows({ selected: true }).indexes();

						editor.edit(indexes, {
							title: 'Edit',
							buttons: indexes.length === 1 ? backNext : 'Save'
						});
					}
				},
				{ extend: 'remove', editor: editor }
			]
		}
	},
	select: true
});

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:

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 interaction for this demo is shown below. This server uses PHP, so the PHP script is shown, however our download packages include the equivalent script for other platforms, including .NET and Node.js. Server-side scripts can be written in any language, using the protocol described in the Editor documentation.

Previous / next editing buttons

Other examples

Simple initialisation

Advanced initialisation

DataTables as an input

Dates and time

DataTables extensions

Inline editing

Bubble editing

API

Standalone

Styling

Plug-ins

DataTables