How to read the data of a table

Hi,

thanks for your question.

I can see what you are trying to do here, but I’m not sure that TablePress is the correct tool, so I’ll start with some general feedback:
What you are trying to do, is use TablePress as a database system — but that’s not what TablePress is. TablePress was designed to give a quick way for showing tabular data on page, but it does not really have capabilities for querying the data in dynamic fashion. However, that’s what you are trying to do, from what I understand. I’m not sure if it isn’t better and easier to do this in “plain” PHP with a mySQL database for example.

However, as you asked, and as I don’t know how flexible you actually need this, a simple solution might be this:
There is a TablePress Extension that allows filtering of rows, see https://tablepress.org/extensions/row-filter/
Basically, this Extension allows to only show certain rows of a table, that match a keyword that is given in a Shortcode parameter.
Additionally, there’s an Extension at https://tablepress.org/extensions/shortcode-filter-get-parameter/ that basically extends the Row Filtering Extension so that the filter keyword comes from a HTTP GET parameter. With that, you could create a more link with some sort of person ID, similar to your example.
Whenever a “More…” link is clicked, you would then come to a page that shows just a single row table, with that person’s information.

Regards,
Tobias

Hi,

and I just remembered another idea that might be an idea for your table. If you are not fixed in having the “More…” links, and have them target a “destiny” page, the solution that you can see at https://www.datatables.net/examples/api/row_details.html might be an idea. Basically, you would have that “+” link next to name and surname, and a click on the “+” would show the extra information from the table.
Unfortunately, I do not have this functionality ready to use as a TablePress Extension, as this is quite complex code. However, if you are interested, I could imagine a way to develop this, if you compensate me for the development time. In that case, please send me an email (you can find the address in the main plugin file “tablepress.php”).

Regards,
Tobias

Thanks.

You’re right when you say the easiest method is “plain” PHP with a mySQL database. But with this method I have the data duplicated: the data in a mySQL database I’ve created and the data in your plugin.

The last idea you tell me (https://www.datatables.net/examples/api/row_details.html) could be interesting if the extra data is shown with a chosen simple template…

I’ll send you an email tomorrow.

Thanks again

Hi,

well, if you have the data in the database, there’s no need to use TablePress of course! You could also create the table HTML via PHP then (and if you want to add the extra functions like searching, sorting, and pagination, you can do that by manually adding the DataTables JavaScript library from https://www.datatables.net). So, it all comes down to how flexible you need this to be.

Regards,
Tobias