Effective DataTables

Uniquely powerful server-side searching, sorting and filtering of any ActiveRecord or Array collection as well as post-rendered content displayed as a frontend jQuery Datatable.

Use a simple DSL in just one ruby file to implement all features

Search raw database tables and ruby post-rendered results at the same time

Packages the jQuery DataTables assets for use in a Rails 3.2.x & Rails 4.x application using Twitter Bootstrap 3

Works with postgres, mysql, sqlite3 and arrays.

Getting Started

gem 'effective_datatables'

Run the bundle command to install it:

bundle install

Install the configuration file:

rails generate effective_datatables:install

The generator will install an initializer which describes all configuration options.

Require the javascript on the asset pipeline by adding the following to your application.js:

//= require effective_datatables

Require the stylesheet on the asset pipeline by adding the following to your application.css:

*= require effective_datatables

Usage

We create a model, initialize it within our controller, then render it from a view

The Model

Start by creating a model in the /app/models/effective/datatables/ directory.

Any Effective::Datatable models that exist in this directory will be automatically detected and 'just work'.

Below is a very simple example file, which we will expand upon later.

This model exists at /app/models/effective/datatables/posts.rb:

module Effective
  module Datatables
    class Posts < Effective::Datatable
      datatable do
        table_column :id
        table_column :user      # if Post belongs_to :user
        table_column :comments  # if Post has_many :comments
        table_column :title
        table_column :created_at
        actions_column
      end

      def collection
        Post.all
      end

    end
  end
end

The Controller

We're going to display this DataTable on the posts#index action

class PostsController < ApplicationController
  def index
    @datatable = Effective::Datatables::Posts.new
  end
end

The View

Here we just render the datatable:

<h1>All Posts</h1>
<%= render_datatable(@datatable) %>

How It Works

When the jQuery DataTable is first initialized on the front-end, it makes an AJAX request back to the server asking for data.

The effective_datatables gem intercepts this request and returns the appropriate results.

Whenever a search, sort, filter or pagination is initiated on the front end, that request is interpretted by the server and the appropriate results returned.

Due to the unique search/filter ability of this gem, a mix of raw database tables and processed results may be worked with at the same time.

Effective::Datatable Model & DSL

Once your controller and view are set up to render a Datatable, the model is the central point to configure all behaviour.

This single model file contains just 1 required method and responds to only 3 DSL commands.

Each Effective::Datatable model must be defined in the /app/models/effective/datatables/ directory.

For example: /app/models/effective/datatables/posts.rb:

module Effective
  module Datatables
    class Posts < Effective::Datatable
      datatable do
        default_order :created_at, :desc
        default_entries 25

        table_column :id, :visible => false

        table_column :created_at, :width => '25%'

        table_column :updated_at, :proc => Proc.new { |post| nicetime(post.updated_at) } # just a standard helper as defined in helpers/application_helper.rb

        table_column :user

        table_column :post_category_id, :filter => {:type => :select, :values => Proc.new { PostCategory.all } } do |post|
          post.post_category.name.titleize
        end

        array_column :comments do |post|
          content_tag(:ul) do
            post.comments.where(:archived => false).map do |comment|
              content_tag(:li, comment.title)
            end.join('').html_safe
          end
        end

        table_column :title, :label => 'Post Title', :class => 'col-title'
        actions_column
      end

      def collection
        Post.where(:archived => false).includes(:post_category)
      end

    end
  end
end

The collection

A required method def collection must be defined to return the base ActiveRecord collection.

It can be as simple or as complex as you'd like:

def collection
  Posts.all
end

or (complex example):

def collection
  collection = Effective::Order.unscoped.purchased
    .joins(:user)
    .joins(:order_items)
    .group('users.email')
    .group('orders.id')
    .select('users.email AS email')
    .select('orders.*')
    .select("#{query_total} AS total")
    .select("string_agg(order_items.title, '!!OI!!') AS order_items")

  if attributes[:user_id].present?
    collection.where(:user_id => attributes[:user_id])
  else
    collection
  end
end

def query_total
  "SUM((order_items.price * order_items.quantity) + (CASE order_items.tax_exempt WHEN true THEN 0 ELSE ((order_items.price * order_items.quantity) * order_items.tax_rate) END))"
end

Array Backed collection

Don't want to use ActiveRecord? Not a problem.

Define your collection as an Array of Arrays, declare only array_columns, and everything works as expected.

module Effective
  module Datatables
    class ArrayBackedDataTable < Effective::Datatable
      datatable do
        array_column :id
        array_column :first_name
        array_column :last_name
        array_column :email
      end

      def collection
        [
          [1, 'Dana', 'Janssen', '[email protected]'],
          [2, 'Ashley', 'Janssen', '[email protected]'],
          [3, 'Matthew', 'Riemer', '[email protected]'],
          [4, 'Stephen', 'Brown', '[email protected]'],
          [5, 'Warren', 'Uhrich', '[email protected]'],
          [6, 'Dallas', 'Meidinger', '[email protected]'],
          [7, 'Nathan', 'Feaver', '[email protected]']
        ]
      end

    end
  end
end

table_column

This is the main DSL method that you will interact with.

table_column defines a 1:1 mapping between a SQL database table column and a frontend jQuery Datatables table column. It creates a column.

table_column performs searching and sorting on the raw database records, before any results are rendered.

Options may be passed to specify the display, search, sort and filter behaviour for that column.

When the given name of the table_column matches an ActiveRecord attribute, the options are set intelligently based on the underlying datatype.

# The name of the table column as per the Database
# This column is detected as an Integer, therefore it is :type => :integer
# Any SQL used to search this field will take the form of "id = ?"
table_column :id

# As per our 'complex' example above, using the .select('customers.stripe_customer_id AS stripe_customer_id') syntax to create a faux database table
# This column is detected as a String, therefore it is :type => :string
# Any SQL used to search this field will take the form of "customers.stripe_customer_id ILIKE %?%"
table_column :stripe_customer_id, :column => 'customers.stripe_customer_id'

# The name of the table column as per the Database
# This column is detected as a DateTime, therefore it is :type => :datetime
# Any SQL used to search this field will take the form of
# "to_char(#{column} AT TIME ZONE 'GMT', 'YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI') ILIKE '%?%'"
table_column :created_at

# If the name of the table column matches a belongs_to in our collection's main class
# This column will be detected as a belongs_to and some predefined filters will be set up
# So declaring the following
table_column :user

# Will have the same behaviour as declaring
datatable do
  if attributes[:user_id].blank?
    table_column :user_id, :filter => {:type => :select, :values => Proc.new { User.all.map { |user| [user.id, user.to_s] }.sort { |x, y| x[1] <=> y[1] } } } do |post|
      post.user.to_s
    end
  end
end

All table_columns are visible: true, sortable: true by default.

array_column

array_column accepts the same options as table_column and behaves identically on the frontend.

The difference occurs with sorting and filtering:

array_columns perform searching and sorting on the computed results after all columns have been rendered.

With a table_column, the frontend sends some search terms to the server, the raw database table is searched & sorted using standard ActiveRecord .where(), the appropriate rows returned, and then each row is rendered as per the rendering options.

With an array_column, the front end sends some search terms to the server, all rows are returned and rendered, and then the rendered output is searched & sorted.

This allows the output of an array_column to be anything complex that cannot be easily computed from the database.

When searching & sorting with a mix of table_columns and array_columns, all the table_columns are processed first so the most work is put on the database, the least on rails.

General Options

The following options control the general behaviour of the column:

:column => 'users.id'     # Set this if you're doing something tricky with the database.  Used internally for .order() and .where() clauses
:type => :string          # Derived from the ActiveRecord attribute default datatype.  Controls searching behaviour.  Valid options include :string, :text, :datetime, :integer, :boolean, :year

Display Options

The following options control the display behaviour of the column:

:label => 'Nice Label'    # Override the default column header label
:sortable => true|false   # Allow sorting of this column.  Otherwise the up/down arrows on the frontend will be disabled.
:visible => true|false    # Hide this column at startup.  Column visbility can be changed on the frontend.  By default, hidden column filter terms are ignored.
:width => '100%'|'100px'  # Set the width of this column.  Can be set on one, all or some of the columns.  If using percentages, should never add upto more than 100%
:class => 'col-example'   # Adds an html class to the column's TH and all TD elements.  Add more than one class with 'example col-example something'

Filtering Options

Setting a filter will create an appropriate text/number/select input in the header row of the column.

The following options control the filtering behaviour of the column:

table_column :created_at, :filter => false    # Disable filtering on this column entirely
table_column :created_at, :filter => {...}    # Enable filtering with these options

:filter => {:type => :number}
:filter => {:type => :text}

:filter => {:type => :select, :values => ['One', 'Two'], :selected => 'Two'}
:filter => {:type => :select, :values => [*2010..(Time.zone.now.year+6)]}
:filter => {:type => :select, :values => Proc.new { PostCategory.all } }
:filter => {:type => :select, :values => Proc.new { User.all.order(:email).map { |obj| [obj.id, obj.email] } } }

:filter => {:type => :grouped_select, :values => {'Active' => Events.active, 'Past' => Events.past }}
:filter => {:type => :grouped_select, :values => {'Active' => [['Event A', 1], ['Event B', 2]], 'Past' => [['Event C', 3], ['Event D', 4]]} }

Some additional, lesser used options include:

:filter => {:fuzzy => true} # Will use an ILIKE/includes rather than = when filtering.  Use this for selects.
:filter => {sql_operation => :having}  # Will use .having() instead of .where() to handle aggregate columns (autodetected)

Rendering Options

There are a few different ways to render each column's output.

Any standard view helpers like link_to or simple_format and any custom helpers available to your views will be available.

All of the following rendering options can be used interchangeably:

Block format (really, this is your cleanest option):

table_column :created_at do |post|
  if post.created_at > (Time.zone.now-1.year)
    link_to('this year', post_path(post))
  else
    link_to(post.created_at.strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"), post_path(post))
  end
end

Proc format:

table_column :created_at, :proc => Proc.new { |post| link_to(post.created_at, post_path(post)) }

Partial format:

table_column :actions, :partial => '/posts/actions'  # render this partial for each row of the table

then in your /app/views/posts/_actions.html.erb file:

<p><%= link_to('View', post_path(post)) %></p>
<p><%= link_to('Edit', edit_post_path(post)) %></p>

The local object name will either match the database table singular name post, the name of the partial actions, or obj unless overridden with:

table_column :actions, :partial => '/posts/actions', :partial_local => 'the_post'

There are also a built in helper, datatables_admin_path? to considering if the current screen is in the /admin namespace:

table_column :created_at do |post|
  if datatables_admin_path?
    link_to admin_posts_path(post)
  else
    link_to posts_path(post)
  end
end

The request object is available to the table_column, so you could just as easily call:

request.referer.include?('/admin/')

Column Header Rendering Options

You can override the default rendering and define a partial to use for the header <th>:

table_column :special, :header_partial => '/posts/special_header'

The following locals will be available in the header partial:

form        # The SimpleForm FormBuilder instance
name        # The name of your column
column      # the table_column options
filterable  # whether the dataTable is filterable

actions_column

Creates a column with links to this resource's Show, Edit and Destroy actions.

Optionally uses the authorization method (below) to determine if the current_user has permission for each of these actions.

See the config/initializers/effective_datatable.rb file for more information.

table_columns

Quickly create multiple table_columns all with default options:

table_columns :id, :created_at, :updated_at, :category, :title

default_order

Sort the table by this field and direction on start up

default_order :created_at, :asc|:desc

default_entries

The number of entries to show per page

default_entries :all

Valid options are 10, 25, 50, 100, 250, 1000, :all

Additional Functionality

There are a few other ways to customize the behaviour of effective_datatables

Checking for Empty collection

Check whether the datatable has records by calling @datatable.empty? and @datatable.present?.

Keep in mind, these methods look at the collection's total records, not the currently displayed/filtered records.

Customize Filter Behaviour

This gem does its best to provide "just works" filtering of both raw SQL (table_column) and processed results (array_column) out-of-the-box.

It's also very easy to override the filter behaviour on a per-column basis.

Keep in mind, the filter terms on hidden columns will still be considered in filter results.

For custom filter behaviour, specify a def search_column method in the datatables model file:

def collection
  User.unscoped.uniq
    .joins('LEFT JOIN customers ON customers.user_id = users.id')
    .select('users.*')
    .select('customers.stripe_customer_id AS stripe_customer_id')
    .includes(:addresses)
end

def search_column(collection, table_column, search_term)
  if table_column[:name] == 'subscription_types'
    collection.where('subscriptions.stripe_plan_id ILIKE ?', "%#{search_term}%")
  else
    super
  end
end

Initialize with attributes

Any attributes passed to .new() will be persisted through the lifecycle of the datatable.

You can use this to scope the datatable collection or create even more advanced search behaviour.

In the following example we will hide the User column and scope the collection to a specific user.

In your controller:

class PostsController < ApplicationController
  def index
    @datatable = Effective::Datatables::Posts.new(:user_id => current_user.try(:id))
  end
end

And then in your datatable:

module Effective
  module Datatables
    class Posts < Effective::Datatable
      datatable do
        if attributes[:user_id].blank?
          table_column :user_id { |post| post.user.email }
        end
      end

      def collection
        if attributes[:user_id]
          Post.where(user_id: attributes[:user_id])
        else
          Post.all
        end
      end

    end
  end
end

Helper methods

Any non-private methods defined in the datatable model will be available to your table_columns and evaluated in the view_context.

module Effective
  module Datatables
    class Posts < Effective::Datatable
      def format_post_title(post)
        if post.title.start_with?('important')
          link_to(post.title.upcase, post_path(post))
        else
          link_to(post.title, post_path(post))
        end
      end

      datatable do
        table_column :title do |post|
          format_post_title(post)
        end
      end

      def collection
        Post.all
      end
    end
  end
end

You can also get the same functionality by including a regular Rails helper within the datatable model.

module PostHelper
end

module Effective
  module Datatables
    class Posts < Effective::Datatable
      include PostsHelper

    end
  end
end

Working with other effective_gems

Effective Addresses

When working with an ActiveRecord collection that implements effective_addresses, the filters and sorting will be automatically configured.

Just define table_column :addresses

When filtering values in this column, the address1, address2, city, postal code, state code and country code will all be matched.

Effective Obfuscation

When working with an ActiveRecord collection that implements effective_obfuscation for the ID column, that column's filters and sorting will be automatically configured.

Just define table_column :id

Unfortunately, due to the effective_obfuscation algorithm, sorting and filtering by partial values is not supported.

So the column may not be sorted, and may only be filtered by typing the entire 10-digit number, with or without any formatting.

Effective Roles

When working with an ActiveRecord collection that implements effective_roles, the filters and sorting will be automatically configured.

Just define table_column :roles

The EffectiveRoles.roles collection will be used for the filter values, and sorting will be done by roles_mask.

Get access to the raw results

After all the searching, sorting and rendering of final results is complete, the server sends back an Array of Arrays to the front end jQuery DataTable

The finalize method provides a hook to process the final collection as an Array of Arrays just before it is convered to JSON.

This final collection is available after searching, sorting and pagination.

As you have full control over the table_column presentation, I can't think of any reason you would actually need or want this:

def finalize(collection)
  collection.each do |row|
    row.each do |column|
      column.gsub!('horse', 'force') if column.kind_of?(String)
    end
  end
end

Authorization

All authorization checks are handled via the config.authorization_method found in the config/initializers/effective_datatables.rb file.

It is intended for flow through to CanCan or Pundit, but neither of those gems are required.

This method is called by the controller action with the appropriate action and resource

Action will be :index

The resource will be the collection base class, such as Post. This can be overridden:

def collection_class
  NotPost
end

The authorization method is defined in the initializer file:

# As a Proc (with CanCan)
config.authorization_method = Proc.new { |controller, action, resource| authorize!(action, resource) }

# As a Custom Method
config.authorization_method = :my_authorization_method

and then in your application_controller.rb:

def my_authorization_method(action, resource)
  current_user.is?(:admin) || EffectivePunditPolicy.new(current_user, resource).send('#{action}?')
end

or disabled entirely:

config.authorization_method = false

If the method or proc returns false (user is not authorized) an Effective::AccessDenied exception will be raised

You can rescue from this exception by adding the following to your application_controller.rb:

rescue_from Effective::AccessDenied do |exception|
  respond_to do |format|
    format.html { render 'static_pages/access_denied', :status => 403 }
    format.any { render :text => 'Access Denied', :status => 403 }
  end
end

Examples

Search by a belongs_to objects' field

In this example, a User belongs_to an Applicant. But instead of using the built in belongs_to functionality and displaying a dropdown of users, instead we want to search by the user's email address:

module Effective
  module Datatables
    class Applicants < Effective::Datatable
      datatable do
        table_column :id, visible: true

        table_column :user, :type => :string, :column => 'users.email' do |applicant|
          link_to applicant.user.try(:email), edit_admin_user_path(applicant.user)
        end
      end

      def collection
        col = Applicant.joins(:user).includes(:user).references(:user)
      end
    end
  end
end

License

MIT License. Copyright Code and Effect Inc.

Code and Effect is the product arm of AgileStyle, an Edmonton-based shop that specializes in building custom web applications with Ruby on Rails.

Testing

The test suite for this gem is unfortunately not yet complete.

Run tests by:

rake spec

Contributing

1. Fork it
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
5. Bonus points for test coverage
6. Create new Pull Request