HTML5 Sortable jQuery Plugin

Lightweight jQuery plugin to create sortable lists and grids using native HTML5 drag and drop API.

Features

Less than 1KB (minified and gzipped).
Built using native HTML5 drag and drop API.
Supports both list and grid style layouts.
Supported Browsers: Current versions of all major browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera), IE9+
Supports exports as AMD, CommonJS or global
Comes with an AngularJS directive help wanted

Demo: Check out the examples

Installation

The recommended way, using Bower:

bower install html.sortable --save

The non-Bower way:

include html.sortable.x.y.z.js or the minified version, html.sortable.min.x.y.z.js.

Install via NPM:

npm install html5sortable --save

Examples

You can find the examples online or test locally.

# To get the local examples to work do the following:
git clone https://github.com/voidberg/html5sortable
cd html5sortable
bower install

Build it / Hack it

1. Clone and install the project You will need npm, choose any way you like to install npm.

git clone https://github.com/voidberg/html5sortable
cd html5sortable
npm install && bower install

2. Send a PR If you send a pull request make sure it passes the tests & linting. Please see CONTRIBUTING for details.

npm test

Usage

Use sortable method to create a sortable list:

$('.sortable').sortable();

Styling

Use .sortable-placeholder CSS selectors to change the styles of the placeholder. You may change the class by setting the sortableClass option in the config object.

$('.sortable').sortable({
  sortableClass: 'my-placeholder fade'
});

Events

sortstart

Use sortstart event if you want to do something when sorting starts:

$('.sortable').sortable().bind('sortstart', function(e, ui) {
    /*

    This event is triggered when the user starts sorting and the DOM position has not yet changed.

    ui.item contains the current dragged element
    ui.placeholder contains the placeholder element
    ui.startparent contains the element that the dragged item comes from

    */
});

sortstop

Use the sortstop event if you want to do something when sorting stops:

$('.sortable').sortable().bind('sortstop', function(e, ui) {
    /*

    This event is triggered when the user stops sorting. The DOM position may have changed.

    ui.item contains the element that was dragged.
    ui.startparent contains the element that the dragged item came from.

    */
});

sortupdate

Use sortupdate event if you want to do something when the order changes (e.g. storing the new order):

$('.sortable').sortable().bind('sortupdate', function(e, ui) {
    /*

    This event is triggered when the user stopped sorting and the DOM position has changed.

    ui.item contains the current dragged element.
    ui.index contains the new index of the dragged element (considering only list items)
    ui.oldindex contains the old index of the dragged element (considering only list items)
    ui.elementIndex contains the new index of the dragged element (considering all items within sortable)
    ui.oldElementIndex contains the old index of the dragged element (considering all items within sortable)
    ui.startparent contains the element that the dragged item comes from
    ui.endparent contains the element that the dragged item was added to (new parent)

    */
});

Options

items

Use items option to specifiy which items inside the element should be sortable:

$('.sortable').sortable({
    items: ':not(.disabled)'
});

handle

Use handle option to restrict drag start to the specified element:

$('.sortable').sortable({
    handle: 'h2'
});

forcePlaceholderSize

Setting forcePlaceholderSize option to true, forces the placeholder to have a height:

$('.sortable').sortable({
    forcePlaceholderSize: true
});

connectWith

Use connectWith option to create connected lists:

$('.js-sortable, .js-second-sortable').sortable({
    connectWith: 'connected' // unique string, which is not used for other connectWith sortables
});

placeholder

Use placeholder option to specify the markup of the placeholder:

$('.sortable').sortable({
  items: 'tr' ,
  placeholder: '<tr><td colspan="7">&nbsp;</td></tr>'
});

hoverClass

Use hoverClass option to specify applying a css class to the hovered element rather than relying on :hover. This can eliminate some potential drag and drop issues where another element thinks it is being hovered over.

$('.sortable').sortable({
  hoverClass: 'is-hovered' // Defaults to false
});

Methods

destroy

To remove the sortable functionality completely:

$('.sortable').sortable('destroy');

disable

To disable the sortable temporarily:

$('.sortable').sortable('disable');

enable

To enable a disabled sortable:

$('.sortable').sortable('enable');

reload

When you add a new item to a sortable, it will not automatically be a draggable item, so you will need to reinit the sortable. Your previously added options will be preserved.

$('.sortable').sortable();

AngularJS usage

HELP WANTED: If you know angular and want to help get this package up to date and cleaned up, please contact me (lukasoppermann) or start submitting PRs.

Make your app use the htmlSortable module. Assign html sortable options to the html-sortable tag, specify an ng-model and, optionally, specify a callback using html-sortable-callback.

$scope.sortableOptions = {
  placeholder: '<div class="sortable-placeholder col-md-3"><div></div></div>',
    forcePlaceholderSize: true
};

$scope.sortableCallback = function (startModel, destModel, start, end) {
  // ...
};

<ul html-sortable="sortableOptions" html-sortable-callback="sortableCallback(startModel, destModel, start, end)" ng-model='data1'>
  <li ng-repeat="itm in data1">
      {{itm}}
   </li>
</ul>

See the examples for more information.

Authors & Contributors

This version is mantained by Alexandru Badiu & Lukas Oppermann.

Thanks to all contributors who contributed fixes and improvements.

Contributing

Please see CONTRIBUTING for details.

Comment your code

Your code should be as self-documenting as possible, but because this is an open source project with multiple contributors please add comments whenever possible.

Docblocks for functions

Every function should have a docblock above stating what the function does and what parameters it is supposed to get.

/*
* remove event handlers from sortable
* @param: {jQuery collection} sortable
*/

Comment on individual lines

You do not need to comment on everything you do, but if you make a decision that could be confusion or something could be potentially seen as an error (e.g. because it is not the default way or not the most obvious way) please comment on why you did this. This prevents people from “fixing” stuff that is not broken and maybe breaking things because of this.

Add tests

Please add tests using mocha and jsdom, to verify & test your changes. Make sure to make your test fail first, so you are sure they work. Since tests are very important, your PR is going to be failed by coveralls, if you do not include tests.

If something is hard to test, you probably need to refactor it into multiple small functions. This is one of the good effects of testing, it improves your code quality.

Just add a new .js file to the test folder, or add a test to one of the files that already exist.

Styleguide

While the code does not pass the linking yet, we are working on it. Please ensure your code does pass our linting.

Take care to maintain the existing coding style. Lint and test your code using npm test.

Keep lines as short as possible (max. 80 characters)

Keeping your lines short makes it much more easy to spot errors and for other developers to scan the code.

Keeping to an 80 character limit makes you think more about how to code something and often forces you to refactor and simplify your code.

Lastly, less character per line, mean less potential merge conflicts.

Don’t use multiple var declaration (except for-loop)

BAD:
var $sortable = $(this), index, placeholder;

Good:
var $sortable = $(this);
var index;
var placeholder;

While a little verbose, declaring one variable per line makes the code much more easy to scan. Additionally this helps when merging PRs.

Don’t use chaining

BAD:
var $item = $(this).attr(‘draggable’, method === ‘enable’);

Good:
var $item = $(this);
$item.attr(‘draggable’, method === ‘enable’);

jQuery makes it easy to chain things together, while this can be a nice feature it makes the code less maintainable, harder to read and harder to understand. Don’t use chaining.

jQuery Collections should be prefix with a $

var $sortable = $(this);

The prefixing of variables that store jQuery collection ensures that developers have an easy time differentiating between jQuery collections and other variables.

Don’t use else if, try to avoid else

// This:
if( a === b){
  …
} else if ( a === c){
  …
}

// Actually means this:
if( a === b){
  …
} else {
  if ( a === c){
    …
  }
}

else if does not exists in javascript, so do not use it.

If at all possible, also try to refrain from using else.

if( a === b){
  return …
} else {
  return …
}

// Could be refactor to
if( a === b){
  return …
}
return …

Reduce parameters (max. 3)

Never use more than 3 parameters, this will keep you from falling into bad habits. If you need complex configuration (which you should try to avoid), use an object.

Reduce nesting depth (max. 3)

Do not nest to deeply. This will make the code confusing, hard to read and again, make merging hard. If your code gets to complex, try to refactor parts out into individual functions.

Roadmap

If you want to help us by working on any of the points below, please let me know and I add you and your branch to the list.

db42/html5sortable