Exzeitable

Dynamic, live updating data tables generated with just a database query and a module. Ideal for quickly adding CRUD interfaces on an admin backend.

Features:

Full-text search
Sorting
Periodic refresh
Bootstrap friendly and easily configured for other CSS frameworks.
Customizable everything (and if something isn't, open an issue!)
Powered by Phoenix LiveView and Postgres.

Find the documentation at https://hexdocs.pm/exzeitable.

Video

Exzeitable

Getting Started

See the Exzeitable video on ElixirCasts for a walkthrough.

Dependencies

This package requires a Postgres database, Phoenix, and Phoenix LiveView.

Add Exzeitable and Phoenix Live View to your list of dependencies in mix.exs.

def deps do
  [
    {:exzeitable, "~> 0.6"},
  ]
end

Migration

Search requires the pg_trgm extension for Postgres.

Generate a new migration file and migrate to add it to Postgres.

mix exzeitable.gen.migration
mix ecto.migrate

Module

Add the boilerplate to a new module.

defmodule YourAppWeb.Live.File do
  @moduledoc "User's File table"
  alias YourAppWeb.Router.Helpers, as: Routes
  import Ecto.Query

  use Exzeitable,
    # Required
    repo: YourApp.Repo,
    routes: Routes,
    path: :file_path,
    action_buttons: [:show, :edit, :custom_button],
    query: from(f in File),
    fields: [
      image: [virtual: true],
      title: [hidden: true],
      description: [hidden: true],
    ],
    
    # Optional
    debounce: 300

  # The callback that renders your table
  def render(assigns), do: ~H"<%= build_table(assigns) %>"

  # Field functions, called when virtual: true or function: true
  def image(socket, file) do
    img_tag(file.url, class: "w-100")
    |> link(to: Routes.file_path(socket, :show, file))
  end
end

We can add options to both the module (as seen above) and the template (As seen below). Template options overwrite module options.

Controller

Controllers are an excellent place to define the base query that forms the default data of the table. Then, everything the table does is with a subset of this data.

query = from(f in Files)
render(conn, "index.html", query: query)

Template

Call the table from your template

<h1> My Awesome Files </h1>
<%= YourAppWeb.Live.File.live_table(@conn, query: @query, action_buttons: [:show, :edit], assigns: %{user_id: @current_user.id}) %>

Note that if you are navigating to the live table using Phoenix LiveView live_session/3 the opts in live_table/3 will not be utilized, and only the module options will apply.

Customizing your table

Required module/template options

:repo The module for your repository. Example: YourApp.Repo
:routes Your route module. Example: YourAppWeb.Router.Helpers
:path The base path for your resource. Example: :site_path
:fields A keyword list where the atom is the Ecto field and the value is a keyword list of options. Example: metadata: [label: "Additional Information"]
:query An Ecto.Query struct, the part before you give it to the Repo. Example: from(s in Site, preload: [:users])

Optional module/template options

action_buttons: [:new, :edit, :show, :delete] A list of atoms representing action buttons available for the user to use. Omitting an atom does not affect authorization, as the routes will still be available.
per_page: 20 Integer representing the number of entries per page.
debounce: 300 Sets how many milliseconds between responding to user input on the search field.
refresh: false Re-queries the database every x milliseconds, defaults to false (disabled).
disable_hide: false Disable show/hide functionality for columns, including not showing the buttons.
pagination: [:top, :bottom] Whether to show the pagination above and below
text: Exzeitable.Text.Default The translation that appears on the table, defaults to English.
assigns: %{} Passes additional assigns to socket.assigns. Keep your payload small!
query_modifier: {MyModule, :my_function} Passes the query to MyModule.my_function/2, where query can then be dynamically altered before being returned. Arguments are the query, and the Exzeitable.Params struct, which is how Exzeitable stores state. Return value is the query.
html_classes Allows the user to add additional HTML classes to elements. Is a list of 2-element tuples where the first element is a string representing the default class (or classes) and the second element is a string representing the classes to be added. I.e. if the default class is exz-pagination-ul then you can append p-5 to it by adding html_classes: [{"exz-pagination-ul", "p-5"}]. This can make styling the table with tailwind or bootstrap much easier.

defmodule MyApp.MyModule do
  def my_function(query, _state) do
     # Make your modifications and return the new query
    query
  end
end

Field options

Under the fields key, you can define a keyword list of atoms with keyword values. The map holds the options for that field. All of these options are optional.

fields: [
          name: [function: true],
          age: [order: false],
          metadata: [label: "Additional Information", virtual: true, hidden: true],
        ]

The following field options are available (with their defaults):

label: nil Set a custom string value for the column heading
function: false Pass (socket, entry) to a function with the same name as the field
hidden: false Hide the column by default (user can click show button to reveal)
search: true Whether to include the column in search results. See the important note below.
order: true Do not allow the column to be sorted (hide the sort button)
formatter: {Exzeitable.HTML.Format, :format} Specifies a formatter function that will be applied to the column content when formatting. The formatter can be specified as either {Mod, fun} or {Mod, fun, args} (The function will have the original content prepended to the list of args). The default formatter passes through the data without modification.
virtual: false This is shorthand for [function: true, search: false, order: false] and will override those settings. Virtual fields are for creating fields that are not database-backed.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Search uses ts_vector, which is performed by Postgres inside the database on string fields. This means that you cannot search fields that are not string type (i.e. integer, datetime, associations, virtual fields). Make sure to set search: false or virtual: true on such fields.

Module/template options for nested routes

Needed to build links where more than one struct is needed, i.e. link("Show Post", to: Routes.user_post_path(@conn, :show, @user, @post))

The official docs if you would like to learn more.

To define belongs_to, you must also define parent (and vice versa).

Continuing the example of users and posts:

resources "/users", UserController do
  resources "/posts", PostController
end

The users Exzeitable do not need the two options below, but the posts Exzeitable does. Because all of its routes are different. We will need the following to make the posts Exzeitable work:

belongs_to: :user
parent: @user

Make sure that you include the :user_id in your query.

In addition, you will need to pass the parent option in from the template.

CSS

I have added generic classes and almost no CSS styling to make the table as CSS framework agnostic as possible, and thus a user of this library should be able to style the tables to their needs.

I have included a Bootstrap SASS example in the CSS Module

Contributing

Opening Issues and Pull Requests

Suggestions, bug reports, and contributions are very welcome! However, please open an issue before starting on a pull request, as I would hate to have any of your efforts be in vain.

Getting set up

This project uses the asdf version manager and docker-compose.

If you would like to contribute, fork the repo on GitHub and then head over to your terminal.

# Clone the project from your GitHub fork
git clone git@github.com:yourname/exzeitable.git
cd exzeitable

# Start postgres
docker-compose up -d

# Install dependencies
asdf install
mix deps.get

# Build assets, and run the test suite
mix check

alanvardy/exzeitable