Slide Down and Edit Within HTML table

Question

Hello,

Basically I have a html table with a bunch of data from a database (MySQL).

I would like to be able to press on a link and have the a given table row slide down to expand into the editing zone.

I would use Ajax to populate that editing space with the detail data from the database.

So this would be my table:

<table> 
    <tr> 
        <th>ID</th> 
        <th>Name</th> 
        <th>Value</th> 
        <th>Edit</th> 
    </tr> 
    <tr> 
        <td>1</td> 
        <td>House</td> 
        <td>5000</td> 
        <td><a href="">Edit</a></td> 
    </tr> 
    <tr> 
        <td>2</td> 
        <td>Dog</td> 
        <td>2000</td> 
        <td><a href="">Edit</a></td> 
    </tr> 
    <tr> 
        <td>3</td> 
        <td>Cat</td> 
        <td>1000</td> 
        <td><a href="">Edit</a></td> 
    </tr> 
</table>

If I wanted to change an entire row of my table using Ajax, I can't just put a div around the tr tag because that just doesn't work. I need to but a div around all my td tags. I really just want a normal for to appear in the table row without the row separations, a bit in this style:

<table> 
    <tr> 
        <th>ID</th> 
        <th>Name</th> 
        <th>Value</th> 
        <th>Edit</th> 
    </tr> 
    <tr> 
        <td colspan="4"> 
            <div id="row_1"> 
                <form method="post" action="" > 
                <input type="hidden" name="ID" value="1"> 
                    <table> 
                        <tr> 
                            <td>Name</td> 
                            <td>
                                <input type="text" name="Name" value="House" />
                            </td> 
                        </tr> 
                        <tr> 
                            <td>Value</td> 
                            <td>
                                <input type="text" name="Value" value="5000" />
                            </td> 
                        </tr> 
                        <tr> 
                            <td colspan="2">
                                <input type="submit" />
                            </td> 
                        </tr> 
                    </table> 
                </form> 
            </div> 
        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr> 
        <td><div id="row_2_id">2</div></td> 
        <td><div id="row_2_name">Dog</div></td> 
        <td><div id="row_2_value">2000</div></td> 
        <td><div id="row_2_edit"><a href="">Edit</a></div></td> 
    </tr> 
    <tr> 
        <td><div id="row_3_id">3</div></td> 
        <td><div id="row_3_name">Cat</div></td> 
        <td><div id="row_3_value">1000</div></td> 
        <td><div id="row_3_edit"><a href="">Edit</a></div></td> 
    </tr> 
</table>

I already have an idea about how to do the whole sliding thing. But I'm having difficulty with is the whole replacing an entire row of a table using ajax. Anybody have an idea of what to do, where to place the divs to take care of that whole business.

Thanks for your input.

Phil

Answer 1

Don't use tables. Uses Divs. Use jquery.

$("#myButton").click(function(){

            var dataString = "yourparameters"

            $.ajax({
            type: "GET",
            dataType: "html",
            cache: false,
            url: "yourServlet", 
            data: dataString, 
            success: function(data) {
                $("#yourDiv").html(data);   
                $("#yourDiv").show(); //assumes it was hidden before
                }
            });
        }

});