Simple Datatables¶ ↑

Connects two awesome plugins - Datatables for Jquery and Meta Search together for Rails 3.1

Install¶ ↑

Add the following to your Gemfile to install simple datatables:

gem 'simple_datatables'

After bundle install add this line to rails 3.1 assets pipeline and restart server:

//= require simple_datatables

Installation completed.

Description¶ ↑

There are two ways to map awesome Datatables plugin request fields for Rails.

• First is to convert request on the server side

• Second is to prepare correct request on the client side

This gem provides interface for the second way. To use it you should do the following easy three steps:

Create simple meta_search and will_paginate (optionally) controller action as usual and add “.datatables” format

respond_to :html, :datatables

def search
  @products = Product.search(params[:search]).paginate(:page => params[:page], :per_page=>params[:per_page])
  respond_with @products
end

Use standard datatables initializer options for creating table:

• bServerSide: true

• sAjaxSource: path to your controller

• fnServerData: point to simpleDatatables function

• aoColumns: you should define all searchable/fiterable sName attributes here. Use format as used in meta_search (with underscores)

Create Jsonify view with column values for columns listed in aoColumns. See example for clarification.

This gem uses:

• meta_search for nice search and sort request syntax mapping

• jsonify for simple output generation

This gem provides integration with:

• will_paginate for nice pagination request syntax mapping

Gem works only with rails 3.1.

Gem includes datatables library and fnSetFilteringDelay plugin so you haven’t include it by yourself.

Pagination¶ ↑

Simple_datatables is compatible with will_paginate. Datatables will provide you “page” and “per_page” request params.

If you do not use pagination do not forget to save search result to some variable with meta_search relation method:

@products = Product.search(params[:search]).relation

Search for all fields¶ ↑

Note that fulltext search will work only with text fields due to meta_search restrictions. To prevent errors use bSearchable: false for non-text columns in aoColumns field.

Regex search¶ ↑

Due to meta_search restrictions it is impossible to use regex search for now.

Instead, this gem recognizes bSearch flag as “contains” meta_search finder.

By default “starts_with” is used due to database performance reasons.

Independent fields search will always search using “starts_with” finder.

Custom pagination implementations¶ ↑

If you are getting strange results (for instance, iTotalRecords and iTotalDisplayRecords both equal 0, or entirely the wrong collection is used), you might want to specify which collection to use:

respond_with @products, :locals => {:collection => @products}

Also if you are using own or uncommon implementation of pagination you may use direct page count variables setting as follows:

respond_with @products, :locals => {:total_entries => 12, :current_page_entries => 10}

In this case gem will not try to find collection or pagination and will use the counters passed via locals.

Example¶ ↑

The following code will show products list datatables. Manufacturer is belongs_to association for Product.

In your controller:

respond_to :html, :datatables

# GET /products/search
def search
  @products = Product.search(params[:search]).paginate(:page => params[:page], :per_page=>params[:per_page])
  respond_with @products
end

In your search view (app/views/products/search.jsonify):

@products.each do |product|
  json << [product.name, product.manufacturer.name]
end

In your index view:

%table#products
  %thead
    %tr
      %th= Product.human_attribute_name :name
      %th= Product.human_attribute_name :manufacturer

  %tbody

In your javascript:

$("#products").dataTable({
    "sAjaxSource"     : "/products/search.datatables",
    "aaSorting"       : [[0, 'asc']],
    "aoColumns"       : [
      {"sName":"name"},
      {"sName":"manufacturer_name"},
    ],
    "bServerSide"     : true,
    "fnServerData"    : simpleDatatables
  });

Copyright¶ ↑

Copyright © Grigory Dmitrenko, 2011. See LICENSE for details.