[theallan]

DataTables author here - I've often wondered what article or software I might write to see if I could get onto the hacker news front page. Apparently the trick is to wake up one morning and be very pleasantly surprised to see existing software already there :-)

Very happy to answer any questions if anyone has any!

[randlet]

Nice to see DataTables on HN, thanks for creating a great library!

Just FYI, your library is being used clinically every day in a number of cancer centres in Canada as part of the open source QA tool for radiation therapy clinics that I wrote[1].

p.s. like others, I'm not a big fan of Hungarian Notation, but it's really no big deal at all and kind of a silly thing to complain about given how useful the library is.

[1] https://bitbucket.org/tohccmedphys/qatrackplus

[m_mueller]

Thanks for writing this piece of software! I appreciate all the configurability. One thing that irks me bit, is the way action buttons are handled (using TableTools, ColVis and the like). Ideally I'd like to place and style the buttons the way I want and just have JS handles for activating their functions as well as state change events. Maybe I've missed something, but I couldn't find how to do this from looking at the documentation as well as the ColVis source code. Did I miss something or do you have plans changing this in the future?

[theallan]

Plans to change it in the future. I'm planning on merging the abilities of ColVis (given that it just calls a standard DataTables API method) into TableTools and improving the TableTools API / configuration options. At the moment ColVis is a little bit lagging while waiting for this to be implemented - which will be the first thing on the cards when DataTables 1.10 is released.

[m_mueller]

Thanks, that's good to know. Makes me want to come back to DataTables once these changes are in effect.

[johnny_reilly]

Hi theallen,

I've made a great deal of use of jqGrid which I've found to be an excellent piece of software. I've always been meaning to give DataTables a try as well but haven't yet got round to it. Assuming you're aware of jqGrid how would you compare / contrast it with DataTables?

[theallan]

Absolutely aware of jqGrid, but to be honest I can't comment on how it compares to DataTables has I've never really worked with jqGrid. Perhaps I've taken the wrong approach, but I've tended not to look at the other table libraries, focusing instead on making DataTables as good as I can for its intended purpose on its own. Having said that, I'm sure there is inspiration I can take from the other libraries, as some are very impressive.

[gogiel]

jqgrid is piece of crap from programmer's point of view. Its code is a true mess. Its made of callback hell, stupid attribute and variable names (like a, b, c, ap, vp, really wtf) and spaghetti code.

[fedechapa]

I love you