[Plugin: WP-Table Reloaded] Omission in Plugin Kills Large Tables

Another thing that I am surprised about is that the Import Table options do not include SQL Import??

The SQL Import file also gives instructions for column names, field types, collation, auto-number, etc. Why is the single most useful Export and Import method for WordPress tables or any mysql table purposely OMMITTED?

It does not make any sense.

SQL files take care of everything important in one step!

I just made the mistake of going back in to Admin to examine WP-Table Reloaded and the large table I just uploaded. Apparently this plug in is way, way too simplistic.

It seems to make the assumption that displaying ALL of the table at one time on one page is quite alright for all situations.

This plugin promises that I can Edit the uploaded table but it is impossible! It wastes bandwidth and time trying to show the whole table from row 1 to row 2912.

I cannot find any way to work this table the way WP-Table Reloaded calls for its display. This is amazingly shortsighted!

I have to shut down my browser again!

Table Options poorly defined. Documentation only talks about one of the Optiions, not the Extended option. Does not explain clearly the differences between the 4 options. does not even discuss all of the options.

This Plugin needs to set some VIEWING PARAMETERS FIRST!

I cannot use the Editing tools if this Admin Edit view does not apply PAGINATION first!

The editing view must be the first thing that is limited so that the page restricts itself to 10 or 20 or 30 rows with pagination just like phpmyadmin.

I cannot use this plugin if it is not modified to give a more sophisticated restriction to table viewing as the default setting.

Hi,

thanks for your post and your feedback. I appreciate your openness!

However, to be honest, I can’t agree, and I feel that you are missing something:

Neither is WP-Table Reloaded designed to be a full-fledged data management system, nor does it aim to connect to them. This is the reason why there is no such thing as “SQL import”. If you need something like this, simply use an existing SQL database.
WP-Table Reloaded is designed to allow users to easily add tables ot their site, without having to know HTML code. It’s use case is not related to SQL tables.

Regarding the problem with the number of rows: I agree that the current state (of showing all rows at once) is ideal, but unfortunately, I don’t know a better way of implementing this.

So, in summary: I’m sorry that your are having trouble with the plugin and that it’s probably not what you are looking for, but for many people it is. And in all your ranting about problems and missing features and how bad the plugin is, please don’t forget that it is Open Source software, and that you can use for free. If you are not happy with it, you can contribute to make it better, or simply don’t use it.

Best wishes and happy (remaining) holidays (You just killed mine to some extent.),
Tobias

Hello Tobias, as you know by now I have replied to you in private.

Sorry to be the bearer of less than glad tidings this Holiday Season!

As I have already written to you in the past hours I would love to return to this forum and give you much applause and praise for a great plugin! I would be thrilled to come back and say this problem is solved and that I was able to use the other fine features that you promote as part of your plugin.

All I am asking is that you modify your plugin so that it does not immediately start loading every single row of a table when you have no way of knowing just how big any user’s table might be.

In SQL, as you know, of course, it is a simple as specifying “LIMIT 0,30” as part of the SELECT query of that imported table.

And your documentation does not warn the user that a newly imported table will simply reload as a SELECT * …. immediately.
Your documentation gives no warning about restricting a table to having no more than x amount of rows because your plugin will immediately try to load up the ENTIRE table and display it with no limits on the number of records it will keep loading.

I would put in the default “LIMIT 0,30” display limitation myself so that I could then work with your plugin but I can’t find the place in your code where it would put that limitation into effect.

At any rate, this just looks like an oversight that is easily corrected by the plugin creator.

That one change would allow me or anyone importing a large table to watch the table quickly load and be ready to work with without causing the browser to go into a lockup and have to be shut down over and over when your plugin was invoked in the Admin editing area.

I thank you for considering this change.

The best of the rest of the Holidays to you from Wien.

Hi,

unfortunately, I did not receive that private answer that you mentioned. If you sent it via email, can you maybe send it again?

As mentioned before, I would be more than glad to have something like pagination on the table’s “Edit” screen. Unfortunately, this is not possible that easily.

The reason simply is that WP-Table Reloaded does not use any SQL to get the table from the database. This means that there is no place to add a “LIMIT” clause to.
Instead, tables are stored as serialized strings in the “wp_options” table (which actually might be a reason to not use too large tables in WP-Table Reloaded…), and they are always loaded and stored there in whole. It is not possible to just get or change a few of the rows there. (This would be possible with some additional and hacky workaround, but I don’t really want to go that road, as it has other problems.)

So, as you can see, large tables in WP-Table Reloaded are not really easy to handle for the plugin, and for the user. I’m fully aware of that, but don’t have an easy way to change this at this time.

Now, when you mention the other features of WP-Table Reloaded, you are probably talking about the JavaScript features like sorting, filtering, and pagination, when viewing the table in a page/post.
If this is what you want on your large table, I have good news: You can have this without using WP-Table Reloaded, as these features are coming from the DataTables JavaScript library (see https://www.datatables.net). All that you have to do is store your table in a custom SQL table (which you can edit through the database management tool of your choice), write a small PHP script to render the HTML table, and then apply the JavaScript code manually, as described on the DataTables website.

Best wishes,
Tobias