HTML drag and drop sortable tables

Question

Ever wanted to have an HTML drag and drop sortable table in which you could sort both rows and columns? I know it's something I'd die for. There's a lot of sortable lists going around but finding a sortable table seems to be impossible to find.

I know that you can get pretty close with the tools that script.aculo.us provides but I ran into some cross-browser issues with them.

Answer 1

I've used dhtmlxGrid in the past. Among other things it supports drag-and-drop rows/columns, client-side sorting (string, integer, date, custom) and multi-browser support.

Response to comment: No, not found anything better - just moved on from that project. :-)

Answer 2

I've used jQuery UI's sortable plugin with good results. Markup similar to this:

<table id="myTable">
<thead>
<tr><th>ID</th><th>Name</th><th>Details</th></tr>
</thead>
<tbody class="sort">
<tr id="1"><td>1</td><td>Name1</td><td>Details1</td></tr>
<tr id="2"><td>2</td><td>Name1</td><td>Details2</td></tr>
<tr id="3"><td>3</td><td>Name1</td><td>Details3</td></tr>
<tr id="4"><td>4</td><td>Name1</td><td>Details4</td></tr>
</tbody>
</table>

and then in the javascript

$('.sort').sortable({
    cursor: 'move',
    axis:   'y',
    update: function(e, ui) {
        href = '/myReorderFunctionURL/';
        $(this).sortable("refresh");
        sorted = $(this).sortable("serialize", 'id');
        $.ajax({
            type:   'POST',
            url:    href,
            data:   sorted,
            success: function(msg) {
                //do something with the sorted data
            }
        });
    }
});

This POSTs a serialized version of the items' IDs to the URL given. This function (PHP in my case) then updates the items' orders in the database.

Answer 3

I recommend Sortables in jQuery. You can use it on list items or pretty much anything, including tables.

jQuery is very cross-browser friendly and I recommend it all the time.

Answer 4

David Heggie's answer was the most useful to me. It can be slightly more concise:

var sort = function(event, ui) {
  var url = "/myReorderFunctionURL/" + $(this).sortable('serialize');
  $.post(url, null,null,"script");  // sortable("refresh") is automatic
}

$(".sort").sortable({
  cursor: 'move',
  axis: 'y',
  stop: sort
});

works for me, with the same markup.

Answer 5

Most frameworks (Yui, MooTools, jQuery, Prototype/Scriptaculous, etc.) have sortable list functionality. Do a little research into each and pick the one that suits your needs most.

Answer 6

If you don't mind Java, there is a very handy library for GWT called GWT-DND check out the online demo to see how powerful it is.

Answer 7

How about sorttable? That would seem to fit your requirements nicely.

It's rather easy to use - load the sorttable Javascript file, then, for each table you want it to make sortable, apply class="sortable" to the <table> tag.

It will immediately understand how to sort most types of data, but if there's something it doesn't, you can add a custom sort key to tell it how to sort. The documentation explains it all pretty well.

Answer 8

If you find .serialize() returning null in David Heggie's solution then set the id values for the TRs as 'id_1' instead of simply '1'

Example:

<tr id="id_1"><td>1</td><td>Name1</td><td>Details1</td></tr>
<tr id="id_2"><td>2</td><td>Name1</td><td>Details2</td></tr>
<tr id="id_3"><td>3</td><td>Name1</td><td>Details3</td></tr>
<tr id="id_4"><td>4</td><td>Name1</td><td>Details4</td></tr>

The above will serialize as "id[]=1&id[]=2&id[]=3"

You can use '=', '-' or '_' instead of '_'. And any other word besides "id".

Answer 9

I am using JQuery Sortable to do so but in case, you are using Vue.js like me, here is a solution that creates a custom Vue directive to encapsulate the Sortable functionality, I am aware of Vue draggable but it doesnt sort table columns as per the issue HERE To see this in action, CHECK THIS

JS Code

Vue.directive("draggable", {
  //adapted from https://codepen.io/kminek/pen/pEdmoo
  inserted: function(el, binding, a) {
    Sortable.create(el, {
      draggable: ".draggable",
      onEnd: function(e) {
        /* vnode.context is the context vue instance: "This is not documented as it's not encouraged to manipulate the vm from directives in Vue 2.0 - instead, directives should be used for low-level DOM manipulation, and higher-level stuff should be solved with components instead. But you can do this if some usecase needs this. */
        // fixme: can this be reworked to use a component?
        // https://github.com/vuejs/vue/issues/4065
        // https://forum.vuejs.org/t/how-can-i-access-the-vm-from-a-custom-directive-in-2-0/2548/3
        // https://github.com/vuejs/vue/issues/2873 "directive interface change"
        // `binding.expression` should be the name of your array from vm.data
        // set the expression like v-draggable="items"

        var clonedItems = a.context[binding.expression].filter(function(item) {
          return item;
        });
        clonedItems.splice(e.newIndex, 0, clonedItems.splice(e.oldIndex, 1)[0]);
        a.context[binding.expression] = [];
        Vue.nextTick(function() {
          a.context[binding.expression] = clonedItems;
        });

      }
    });
  }
});

const cols = [
  {name: "One", id: "one", canMove: false},
  {name: "Two", id: "two", canMove: true},
  {name: "Three", id: "three", canMove: true},
  {name: "Four", id: "four", canMove: true},
]

const rows = [
  {one: "Hi there", two: "I am so excited to test", three: "this column that actually drags and replaces", four: "another column in its place only if both can move"},
  {one: "Hi", two: "I", three: "am", four: "two"},
  {one: "Hi", two: "I", three: "am", four: "three"},
  {one: "Hi", two: "I", three: "am", four: "four"},
  {one: "Hi", two: "I", three: "am", four: "five"},
  {one: "Hi", two: "I", three: "am", four: "six"},
  {one: "Hi", two: "I", three: "am", four: "seven"}
]

Vue.component("datatable", {
  template: "#datatable",
  data() {
    return {
      cols: cols,
      rows: rows
    }
  }
})

new Vue({
  el: "#app"
})

CSS

.draggable {
  cursor: move;
}

table.table tbody td {
  white-space: nowrap;
}

Pug Template HTML

#app
  datatable

script(type="text/x-template" id="datatable")
  table.table
    thead(v-draggable="cols")
      template(v-for="c in cols")
        th(:class="{draggable: c.canMove}")
          b-dropdown#ddown1.m-md-2(:text='c.name')
            b-dropdown-item First Action
            b-dropdown-item Second Action
            b-dropdown-item Third Action
            b-dropdown-divider
            b-dropdown-item Something else here...
            b-dropdown-item(disabled='') Disabled action

    tbody
      template(v-for="row in rows")
        tr
          template(v-for="(col, index) in cols")
            td {{row[col.id]}}