= Data Table

Makes it easy to ship data to a jQuery DataTable from ActiveRecord or Mongoid.

== Quick example:

in your javascript:

  $(".providers-data-table").dataTable({"bJQueryUI"       : true,
                                        "bProcessing"     : true,
                                        "bAutoWidth"      : false,
                                        "sPaginationType" : "full_numbers",
                                        "aoColumns"       : [{"sType" : "html"}, null, null, null, null],
                                        "aaSorting"       : [[0, 'asc'], [1, 'asc']],
                                        "bServerSide"     : true,
                                        "sAjaxSource"     : "/providers.json" }).fnSetFilteringDelay();

Note: the fnSetFilteringDelay() call isn't required but highly recommended: http://datatables.net/plug-ins/api#fnSetFilteringDelay

in your controller:

  class ProvidersController < ApplicationController

    def index
      respond_to do |wants|
        wants.html
        wants.json do
          render(:json => Provider.for_data_table(self, %w(name fein categories.name county state), %w(name fein)) do |provider|
            ["<%= link_to(provider, provider) %>", provider.fein, provider.category.name, provider.county, provider.state]
          end)
        end
      end
    end

  end

in your view (assuming HAML):

  %table.providers-data-table
    %thead
      %tr
        %th Name
        %th FEIN
        %th Category
        %th County
        %th State

    %tbody

and in your Gemfile

  # for ActiveRecord
  gem "will_paginate"

  # for Mongoid
  gem "kaminari"
  
If using *Mongoid* add this to your model

  include Mongoid::DataTable


== Advanced Features

=== Date fields

In order to handle date fields properly, enclose the field name in an array along with a hash like so:

  Provider.for_data_table(self, %w(name fein opened_on), ["name", "fein", ["opened_on", {:date => true}]]) { ... }

=== Split fields

To handle split fields, that is to handle searching for "x-y", add a hash with a split key:

  Provider.for_data_table(self, %w(name fein suffix), ["name", ["fein", "suffix", {:split => "-"}]]) { ... }

== Copyright

Copyright (c) 2010-2011 Jason Dew. See LICENSE for details.