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https://github.com/alfajango/jquery-dynatable

A more-fun, semantic, alternative to datatables
https://github.com/alfajango/jquery-dynatable

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A more-fun, semantic, alternative to datatables

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# jQuery Dynatable



*A funner, semantic, HTML5+JSON, interactive table plugin.*



See the [full documentation with demos](http://www.dynatable.com).



## Why?



The purpose of Dynatable is to provide a simple, extensible API, which

makes viewing and interacting with larger datasets easy. Dynatable

provides a framework for implementing the most common elements out of

the box, including sorting, searching and filtering. Above

all, I wanted a clean and elegant API that is fun to use.



## Quickstart



To install Dynatable:



* [Download the latest release](http://jspkg.com/packages/dynatable)



## Support



IRC: [Join us at #dynatable on freenode IRC](https://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=dynatable)



Bugs and Feature Requests: [Search and open a Github Issue](https://github.com/alfajango/jquery-dynatable/issues)



Debugging: [Fork and edit this template on JSFiddle](http://jsfiddle.net/ty3b7/)



Questions: [Ask a question tagged with dynatable on

StackOverflow](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/dynatable)



## TODO:



* ~~Change `unfilter`s and `filter`s to `reader`s and `writer`s.~~

* ~~Clean up defaults that are functions, by abstracting into internal

  named functions which can be re-used.~~

* Change default sort functions to underscore-namespaced functions so as

  not to conflict with record attributes called e.g. `search`.

* Update sort function implementation to be analogous to search function

  implementation (whereby if a sort function matching attribute name is

  present, it will be used for that attribute by default).

* Namespace pushstate query parameters by dynatable instance id to

  simplify `refreshQueryString` function and prevent conflicts between

  multiple pushState-enabled instances on one page.

* ~~Refactor using prototype to abstract dynatable-global functions to

  improve memory efficiency for multiple instances on one page.~~

* Implement configurable sorting algorithm (see

  [JS Merge Sort](http://en.literateprograms.org/Merge_sort_%28JavaScript%29) and [Sorting Table](http://blog.vjeux.com/2010/javascript/javascript-sorting-table.html)).

* ~~Change from Object.create method to constructor pattern to improve

  performances (see

  [benchmark](http://jsperf.com/object-create-vs-constructor-vs-object-literal/7)).~~

* ~~Use for loops instead of $.each where possible to improve

  performance.~~

* ~~Use strings and/or document fragments for writing to DOM, instead of

  jQuery, by default to improve writing performance.~~

* Use templated strings to write pagination and other inputs.

* Make class names for input elements configurable.

* Use Chrome profiler to find any performance bottlenecks and fix.

* Simplify API by separating internal-only and accessible model

  functions.

* Move sorts and queries functions objects to defaults to make easier to

  customize and add to on instantiation (like filters and unfilters)

* Try using CSS-only for ProcessingIndicator.position to avoid querying

  rendered DOM styling and speed up all operations that position the

  indicator (see [CSS absolute

  centering](http://codepen.io/shshaw/full/gEiDt)).

* Add data-dynatable-attr="name" support for reading records from

  arbitrary markup (so that you don't need to write a custom rowReader

  function when starting with e.g. a stylized list).

* Make sort function first lookup settings.sortTypes[attr], then look

  directly for sort sorts.functions[attr], and then finally

  sorts.guessType only if neither of the first two exist.

* Add global remove/cleanup function (opposite of init) to allow

  removing dynatable via JS.

* Support for Zepto?



## Tests



Currently the testing process consists of opening [the Dynatable

documentation](http://os.alfajango.com/dynatable)

([source code

here](https://github.com/alfajango/alfajango.github.com/blob/master/_posts/2012-01-09-dynatable.md)) in

each browser and making sure every example works. This is fine for the

initial release, since it serves the dual purpose of helping us write

the documentation and having a written functional use-case at once.

However, one of the top priorities now is to automate each use-case in

the docs as a test case within an automated test suite.



If anyone out there thinks this sounds like fun, please contact me or

even go ahead and create an issue/pull request. Otherwise, it will be at

the top of my priority list until I can get to it.



## Contributing



Please see the [Contributing Guidelines](https://github.com/JangoSteve/jquery-dynatable/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md).



## Author



Steve Schwartz -

[JangoSteve on Github](https://github.com/JangoSteve),

[@jangosteve on Twitter](https://twitter.com/jangosteve)



![Alfa Jango logo](https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.alfajango.com/github-readmes/AlfaJango_Logo_Black_noname-tiny.png)

[Alfa Jango Open Source](http://os.alfajango.com) -

[@alfajango on Twitter](https://twitter.com/alfajango)



## Copyright and License



Copyright 2014 Alfa Jango LLC.



Dual licensed, released under the Free Software Foundation's

GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL), or see [license

information](http://www.dynatable.com/license) for proprietary or

commercial applications.



## Miscellaneous



### Refactor performance benchmarks



For version 0.1.0, Dynatable went through a refactor to use prototypal

inheritence as a more memory-efficient foundation. Here are some

off-the-cuff benchmarks I set up when doing this.



The performance increase was modest, according to these benchmarks, but

more importantly, the code became a bit cleaner and easier to work with.



http://jsperf.com/dynatable-prototypal-refactor



http://jsperf.com/dynatable-refactor/3



Currently, there's still a bit of performance improvement to be gained

by further grouping DOM reads and writes (though they're already mostly

grouped together), and by using JS string concatenation instead of

jQuery to build the HTML for rendering step.



The new string concatenation has started to roll out in v0.2.