Building a search function with DataTables plugin (III)

Introduction

In the previous post about the datatables jquery component I demonstrated how to create input select controls for each column. In some cases an select control may however not be desired, due to the diversity of the entries in the column (e.g. track number, firstname, date).

Text inputs

In such cases you probably wont to use text inputs where a substring is being matched against the string entries in the column.

To achieve this our function to build the table have to be adapted slightly:

function initPersons(){

$(‘#persons tfoot th’).each( function () {
var title = $(this).text();
$(this).html( ‘<input type=”text” placeholder=”Search ‘+title+'” />’ );
} );

var db = $(“#persons”).DataTable();
db.destroy();
localStorage.clear();
var table = $(“#persons”).DataTable( {
stateSave : saveState,
fixedHeader: true,
“language” : {
“lengthMenu” : “Entries per page _MENU_”,
// “info” : “Page _PAGE_ of _PAGES_”,
“infoEmpty” : “No entries found”,
“infoFiltered” : “”
},
scrollY : yScroll,
“ajax” : “api.xsp/Persons” ,
“columns” : [
{
data : “firstname”,
“defaultContent”: “<i>Not set</i>”
},{
data : “lastname”,
“defaultContent”: “<i>Not set</i>”
},{
data : “company”
}
],
initComplete: function(){
this.api().columns().every( function () {
var column = this;

$( ‘input’, this.footer() ).on( ‘keyup change’, function () {
if ( column.search() !== this.value ) {
column
.search( this.value )
.draw();
}
} );

} );
}
});
}

As a result under each column input boxes which column filter functionality are added underneath the columns: