Simple inline editing

Editor has three different Editor modes:

  • Primary editing
  • Bubble editing
  • Inline editing

Inline editing, as shown demonstrated in this section, is designed to allow rapid editing of individual fields in a table. The most common use case is to simply click on the cell you want to edit and then hit return once the edit is complete. This will save the data and the row will be immediately updated.

This example shows inline editing on all data columns in the table. The primary editing interface of Editor is also still available, with row selection being made available by clicking in the first column (the checkbox shown is provided by Select's checkbox renderer). In this manner you get the benefits of rapid editing as well as the ability to create, edit and delete full records very easily.

Inline editing in Editor is activated through the use of the inline() API method. Simply call the method and pass in the cell you want to edit as the first parameter. Editor will attempt to automatically determine which parameter is to be edited. Alternatively, or if Editor is unable to determine the field automatically, use the second parameter to tell it which field to edit.

First name Last name Position Office 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' }); $('#example').DataTable({ ajax: '../php/staff.php', columns: [ { data: null, orderable: false, render: DataTable.render.select() }, { data: 'first_name' }, { data: 'last_name' }, { data: 'position' }, { data: 'office' }, { data: 'start_date' }, { data: 'salary', render: DataTable.render.number(null, null, 0, '$') } ], layout: { topStart: { buttons: [ { extend: 'create', editor: editor }, { extend: 'edit', editor: editor }, { extend: 'remove', editor: editor } ] } }, order: [[1, 'asc']], select: { style: 'os', selector: 'td:first-child' } }); // Activate an inline edit on click of a table cell $('#example').on('click', 'tbody td:not(:first-child)', function (e) { editor.inline(this); });
const editor = new DataTable.Editor({ ajax: '../php/staff.php', fields: [ { label: 'First name:', name: 'first_name' }, { label: 'Last name:', name: 'last_name' }, { label: 'Position:', name: 'position' }, { label: 'Office:', name: 'office' }, { label: 'Extension:', name: 'extn' }, { label: 'Start date:', name: 'start_date', type: 'datetime' }, { label: 'Salary:', name: 'salary' } ], table: '#example' }); const table = new DataTable('#example', { ajax: '../php/staff.php', columns: [ { data: null, orderable: false, render: DataTable.render.select() }, { data: 'first_name' }, { data: 'last_name' }, { data: 'position' }, { data: 'office' }, { data: 'start_date' }, { data: 'salary', render: DataTable.render.number(null, null, 0, '$') } ], layout: { topStart: { buttons: [ { extend: 'create', editor: editor }, { extend: 'edit', editor: editor }, { extend: 'remove', editor: editor } ] } }, order: [[1, 'asc']], select: { style: 'os', selector: 'td:first-child' } }); // Activate an inline edit on click of a table cell table.on('click', 'tbody td:not(:first-child)', function (e) { editor.inline(this); });

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.

      Other examples