Creating editable tables in WordPress using wpDataTables

There are 2 primary ways to create editable wpDataTables:

• Create the  data tables manually (see details here) or import the table data from Excel or CSV (see details here)
• Create a MySQL-based wpDataTable and configure it as editable.

Tables created manually with Table Constructor are back-end editable by default; to allow front-end editing, simply open the “Editing” tab in the table configuration settings, click the  “Allow editing” option, and click the “Save Changes” button (the ID column and the table name will be pre-configured for this type of tables by default).

Your front-end users will then be able to edit the table data.

To create MySQL-based editable tables, which you previously prepared in your MySQL DB server, the algorithm is a little bit more complicated.

First, you will need to create a table on the MySQL side and a MySQL-query based wpDataTable; the steps for this are described in this tutorial.

Once the table is created, go to the “Editing” tab in table configuration settings and click the “Allow editing” button like from the example above.
The wpDataTables plugin will then try to guess the  “MySQL table name for editing” and the “ID column for editing”  (if the column name is “id” or “ID” or similar, it will usually guess correctly).

In some cases, it is necessary to provide the name for “MySQL table name for editing” and the “ID column for editing” for two reasons: First of all, it is not always possible to parse it from the query; and second – there are situations when you would like to send the changes to a different table rather from than the one used in the query. After you define these settings don’t forget to press the “Save Changes” button.

When the table is saved and inserted in the post or page, the look of the table in the front-end is slightly different from that of a typical non-editable table. You’ll see three new buttons in the TableTools section of the table (or just these three if you didn’t enable TableTools for this wpDataTable or four if you use Duplicate Edit button).

Manual tables will be always editable on the table configuration page, and you will always see these three buttons independently from the “Allow editing” feature.

It is also possible to select a row in the table by clicking on it. When you do so, the row will become highlighted (you can change the highlight color along with other table colors on the table settings page).

To make editing possible, you need to choose editor input types for the columns we want to allow users to edit. For this, you need to open the column configuration panel by clicking on “Column settings” button  or by clicking the “Column list”  button above the table which enables you to open the column configuration for each column you want to make editable. Then, you need to make a selection in the “Editor input type” dropdown under the “Editing” tab. The possible input types are fully explained in this section.

When the editor input types are chosen and saved, you can return to the table front-end (open the post or page where you inserted the table), choose any row, and click “Edit“; or click “New” to create a new entry. You will see an editor popup. The popup is responsive, so it will work correctly on mobile and tablet devices as well.

• On the editor popup, you will see the names of the columns and the editor inputs for the cells.
• Above those columns, you will see navigation buttons:
  • < Prev – selects the previous row of the table, unless the first one is selected. If necessary, it switches to the previous page and puts the data from this row in the front-end editor. Changes that were not saved will be discarded.
  • Next > – selects the next row of the table, unless the last one is selected. If necessary, it switches the table to the next page and puts the data from this row to the front-end editor inputs. Changes that weren’t saved will be discarded.
• On the bottom side, you will see the control and navigation buttons. Cancel – discards all changes and closes the editor popup.
  • Apply and add new – saves the data from the editor in the current row, it doesn’t close the popup but opens a new editor with the blank input fields. If in option “Edit buttons to be displayed on the front-end” is set only Edit option, then this button will be removed from edit modal.
  • Submit – saves the data from the editor in the current row, and closes the editor popup.
  • Right top “X” button is equal to “Cancel” – this discards all unsaved changes and closes the popup

When you click “Apply and add new” or “Submit“, data is first validated and then sent to the MySQL engine. If the data is invalid, or MySQL returns an error, you will see an error message which tells you which field is problematic and what you need to change.

While the data saving is in progress, you will see an overlay indicating that the process is going on in the background. If the data is sent correctly, you will see a success message.

Please read the next documentation section to see full details on how to configure columns in the editable table correctly.