DataTables Topic Guide

Horizon provides the horizon.tables module to provide a convenient, reusable API for building data-driven displays and interfaces. The core components of this API fall into three categories: DataTables, Actions, and Class-based Views.

See also

For a detailed API information check out the DataTables Reference Guide.

Tables

The majority of interface in a dashboard-style interface ends up being tabular displays of the various resources the dashboard interacts with. The DataTable class exists so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel each time.

Creating your own tables

Creating a table is fairly simple:

1. Create a subclass of DataTable.
2. Define columns on it using Column.
3. Create an inner Meta class to contain the special options for this table.
4. Define any actions for the table, and add them to table_actions or row_actions.

Examples of this can be found in any of the tables.py modules included in the reference modules under horizon.dashboards.

Connecting a table to a view

Once you’ve got your table set up the way you like it, the next step is to wire it up to a view. To make this as easy as possible Horizon provides the DataTableView class-based view which can be subclassed to display your table with just a couple lines of code. At it’s simplest it looks like this:

from horizon import tables
from .tables import MyTable


class MyTableView(tables.DataTableView):
    table_class = MyTable
    template_name = "my_app/my_table_view.html"

    def get_data(self):
        return my_api.objects.list()

In the template you would just need to include the following to render the table:

{{ table.render }}

That’s it! Easy, right?

Actions

Actions comprise any manipulations that might happen on the data in the table or the table itself. For example, this may be the standard object CRUD, linking to related views based on the object’s id, filtering the data in the table, or fetching updated data when appropriate.

When actions get run

There are two points in the request-response cycle in which actions can take place; prior to data being loaded into the table, and after the data is loaded. When you’re using one of the pre-built class-based views for working with your tables the pseudo-workflow looks like this:

1. The request enters view.
2. The table class is instantiated without data.
3. Any “preemptive” actions are checked to see if they should run.
4. Data is fetched and loaded into the table.
5. All other actions are checked to see if they should run.
6. If none of the actions have caused an early exit from the view, the standard response from the view is returned (usually the rendered table).

The benefit of the multi-step table instantiation is that you can use preemptive actions which don’t need access to the entire collection of data to save yourself on processing overhead, API calls, etc.

Basic actions

At their simplest, there are three types of actions: actions which act on the data in the table, actions which link to related resources, and actions that alter which data is displayed. These correspond to Action, LinkAction, and FilterAction.

Writing your own actions generally starts with subclassing one of those action classes and customizing the designated attributes and methods.

Shortcut actions

There are several common tasks for which Horizon provides pre-built shortcut classes. These include BatchAction, and DeleteAction. Each of these abstracts away nearly all of the boilerplate associated with writing these types of actions and provides consistent error handling, logging, and user-facing interaction.

It is worth noting that BatchAction and DeleteAction are extensions of the standard Action class.

Preemptive actions

Action classes which have their preempt attribute set to True will be evaluated before any data is loaded into the table. As such, you must be careful not to rely on any table methods that require data, such as get_object_display() or get_object_by_id(). The advantage of preemptive actions is that you can avoid having to do all the processing, API calls, etc. associated with loading data into the table for actions which don’t require access to that information.