Are Fixed Columns possible?

Hi,

thanks for the question.

Yes, that’s possible! And my understanding from our short Twitter discussion was that you had already found the solution, but had problems using it.

The solution is some extra code for the DataTables JavaScript library (which is already used for the sorting, search, and pagination functions in TablePress) that will give you this: https://datatables.net/extras/fixedcolumns/
As you can see, the first column is fixed there.

I have packaged that code into a TablePress Extension, which you can get at https://tablepress.org/extensions/datatables-fixedcolumns/
That page also has some instructions on how to use this.

I hope this is what you are looking for ??

Regards,
Tobias

Thanks Tobias, I really appreciate your quick reply and your efforts. Thanks man. I’ll give this extension a try and let you know. Thanks again.

HOLY CRAP!!!! YES SIR THIS DID IT! Thank you so much. Awesome!

Hi,

awesome ?? Great to hear that!
And you’re very welcome!

Best wishes,
Tobias

P.S.: In case you haven’t, please rate TablePress here in the plugin directory. Thanks!

Uh Oh.. Wait a sec. there’s a bug in it.

It works great for the “Show 10” but if you expand it to show more it blows out and removes horizontal scrolling. Any ideas?

Hi,

oh, that’s not nice.
Can you please post a link to the page with the table, so that I can take a look?

Regards,
Tobias

Yep sure can. https://www.shellbackgolfclub.org/2013-tournament-results/#July

Scroll down a bit and you’ll see the tables. Change the view from 10 to 25 to see.

Just a note, that page is a work in progress. I haven’t got the thing formatted the way it should be. I’m working out the details before I pretty it up. Thanks for your help sir.

Hi,

thanks for the link.
From what I can see this seems to be related to width of the content area of the page (i.e. the theme). It’s comparably small, and that seems to confuse some calculations in the FixedColumns JavaScript code.

When I test with your table on my test site, which has a wider content area, I can not reproduce this.

I therefore suggest that switch to a theme with a wider content area, or increase the content area of the current theme with some additional CSS code.
The easiest way would be to add the following to the “Custom CSS” textarea on the “Plugin Options” screen of TablePress:

.singular .entry-header,
.singular .entry-content {
  width: 100%;
}

Can you try that?

Regards,
Tobias

Yep I’ll give that a shot. I’m using the twenty ten theme but I guess I can look for another one if this don’t work. Let me try the code first.

Okay that worked but it took the centering out of the page. No problem I can fix that. That code fixed the issue Tobias. Thanks a lot for your help. I’ll hit the tip jar ASAP.

Hi,

well, technically it didn’t take out the centering. There was no centering before. It just appeared like this due to the width of the smaller tables ??

And fixing it with a wrapping <center> HTML tag is not the best choice, IMHO. Just extend the CSS to

.singular .entry-header,
.singular .entry-content {
  width: 100%;
  text-align: center;
}

if you really want the centering. That CSS is cleaner than the HTML, in my opinion.
But then again, this would apply to all pages of the site, so the HTML solution might be better in your case… Argh, I don’t know what to recommend! ??

Regards,
Tobias

The site I’m working on is data heavy. (User data) Not very complicated at all. But it does require a lot of user interaction. Not the typical WP blog thing. And to make matters worse MOST of the folks using this site still have 8 track tape players and can’t spell internet. So there’s a learning curve I’m dealing with…

Anyway, from here on out I got it. The page you saw was just a rough draft I’m working on a cleaning it up and pairing information along with archiving for the club. I really appreciate your help man. Seriously. You deserve high praise.

Hi,

ah, I perfectly know what you are talking about ??

And you are very welcome!
The main cause for the issue with the 10 to 25 switch is the content width, so just watch that when making modifications.

Oh, and putting the theme related CSS into TablePress’ “Custom CSS” textarea is not really the best long-term solution. If you happen to do more CSS modifications, I suggest to do them as a “child theme”.

Best wishes,
Tobias

Tobias sir, I’d like to spend a few hours/days/weeks picking your brain about this wordpress thingamajig. I have MANY MANY questions. I’m a rookie compared to you and many others. But I’m evidently a wordpress GOD to the crew I work for… LOL.. I’m learning a lot. Thanks for taking the time to help me with this issue..