DataTables ColumnFilterWidgets – Ampersand Issue

Hi,

thanks for your question, and sorry for the trouble.

Yeah, this is a bug in the ColumnFilterWidgets JS script, but I haven’t had a chance yet to take a direct look, as I’m not the developer of that JS code and don’t know it too well :-/

Replacing the ampersands should be the best approach here, and it shouldn’t actually be too troublesome: Just export the table as a CSV file, open that in a text editor of your choice, and use the editors search/replace function. Then, just re-import the table and choose to replace the existing version.

Regards,
Tobias

Cool, that’s fine. I can do that. Thanks for your quick reply!

Hi,

no problem, you are very welcome! ?? Good to hear that this helped!

Best wishes,
Tobias

Hello,

I just want to say here that I used the WordPress exporter to export the tables. I then used ‘Visual Studio Code’ to find and replace all the ampersands.

Yet when I went to go import the tables once again, most of the tables are giving me this error message:

Attention: Unfortunately, an error occurred.
The internal data of table “FORM NAME” (ID 16) is corrupted. The following error was registered: Syntax error.

The tables that DID import correctly are also messed up, by adding random characters to the end of sentences and changing apostrophes to ‘2019’ for some odd reason.

It may just be due to the ‘Visual Studio Code’ program that I used. that was honestly the first time I had ever used that program, as it was just recently installed on my computer and I figured I’d try it out.

I ended up fixing the tables by hand without any problem after I ran into these issues. I just wanted to post what I experienced here for future reference.

Hi,

now that sounds really strange, and it should never happen with an import…
We should keep an eye on this, to make sure that nothing else on the server is messing with the internal table data. I suggest to regularly make backups.

Just to be sure: Did you really use the “WordPress exporter” or did you use the TablePress Export screen?

Also, Visual Studio Code is probably not the best text editor here, as it’s more of a full IDE that can also do other things with the text. I suggest to stick with something like Notepad for search/replace like this, in the future.

Regards,
Tobias

Yeah I figured that program probably wasn’t the best; I just wanted to edit the tables in a program that displayed the formatting of the tables rather than just flat text.

But yes, I used the WordPress exporter. It was only after I used the WordPress exporter that I realized I could export directly through TablePress.

And yes I have so many copies of my tables and I already make regular backups of my sites so that’s not a concern.

Hi,

hhm, if you used the WordPress Exporter, that means that your tables were exported in JSON format, which is indeed a bit ugly to work with here.

Next time, I suggest use the CSV format from the TablePress exporter. Not only is editing that in a text editor much easier, it will also be easier to import.

Best wishes,
Tobias

Tobias,

I will keep that in mind for our future projects.

Thank you for all of your help! It is much appreciated.

Hi,

no problem, you are very welcome! ?? Good to hear that this helped!

Best wishes,
Tobias

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