[Koha-devel] DataTables - using class names in aTargets

[Galen Charlton]

Hi,

There have been a fair number of bugs filed for fixing table sorting
as columns get added to or removed from tables.  At root, they stem
from our current habit of referring to columns by numeric position in
aoColumns and aoColumnDefs/aTargets, e.g.,

{ "aTargets": [ 1, 2 ], "sType": "natural"  }

and

            "aoColumns": [
                { "sType": "title-string" },{ "sType": "html" },null,{
"sType": "title-string" },null,null,null,null,null,null[% IF (
exports_enabled ) %],null[% END %]
            ],

However, the documentation for DataTables says that aTargets doesn't
have to be just an array of integers; it can also be "a string - class
name will be matched on the TH for the column".

To reduce the risk of silly columns-sorting bugs, I suggest that we
adopt a practice of using descriptive CSS class names for table
headers and using the class names in aoColumnsDefs/aTarget
specifications, and dropping the use of aoColumns.

Thoughts?

Regards,

Galen
-- 
Galen Charlton
Manager of Implementation
Equinox Software, Inc. / The Open Source Experts
email:  gmc at esilibrary.com
direct: +1 770-709-5581
cell:   +1 404-984-4366
skype:  gmcharlt
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Supporting Koha and Evergreen: http://koha-community.org &
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