jQuery Table Row Filtering by Column

Question

Im trying to filter table rows in an intelligent way (as opposed to just tons of code that get the job done eventually) but a rather dry of inspiration.

I have 5 columns in my table. At the top of each there is either a dropdown or a textbox with which the user may filter the table data (basically hide the rows that dont apply)

There are plenty of table filtering plugins for jQuery but none that work quite like this, and thats the complicated part :|

Thanks for any input!

Answer 1

This may not be the best way to do it, and I'm not sure about the performance, but an option would be to tag each column (in each row) with an id starting with a column identifier and then a unique number like a record identifier.

For example, if you had a column Produce Name, and the record ID was 763, I would do something like the following:

​​<table id="table1">
    <thead>
        <tr>
            <th>Artist</th>
            <th>Album</th>
            <th>Genre</th>
            <th>Price</th>
        </tr>
    </thead>
    <tbody>
        <tr>
            <td id="artist-127">Red Hot Chili Peppers</td>
            <td id="album-195">Californication</td>
            <td id="genre-1">Rock</td>
            <td id="price-195">$8.99</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td id="artist-59">Santana</td>
            <td id="album-198">Santana Live</td>
            <td id="genre-1">Rock</td>
            <td id="price-198">$8.99</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td id="artist-120">Pink Floyd</td>
            <td id="album-183">Dark Side Of The Moon</td>
            <td id="genre-1">Rock</td>
            <td id="price-183">$8.99</td>
        </tr>
    </tbody>
</table>

You could then use jQuery to filter based on the start of the id.

For example, if you wanted to filter by the Artist column:

var regex = /Hot/;
$('#table1').find('tbody').find('[id^=artist]').each(function() {
    if (!regex.test(this.innerHTML)) {
        this.parentNode.style.backgroundColor = '#ff0000';
    }
});

Answer 2

Here is a basic filter example http://jsfiddle.net/urf6P/3/

It uses the jquery selector :contains('some text') and :not(:contains('some text')) to decide if each row should be shown or hidden. This might get you going in a direction.