DataTables example Custom toolbar elements

DataTables inserts DOM elements around the table to control DataTables features, and you can make use of this mechanism as well to insert your own custom elements. In this example a div with a class of '-string toolbar' is created using dom, and jQuery then used to insert HTML into that element to create the toolbar. You could put whatever HTML you want into the toolbar!

For more complex features, or for creating reusable plug-ins, DataTables also has a feature plug-in API available, which can be used to create plug-ins which are used in a table by a single character reference in the dom option (like the built in option of f refers to 'filtering input', you could have an F option which creates your own filtering input control, custom to your app).

There are a number of extensions for DataTables that make use of this ability. For example, Buttons is a feature plug-in for DataTables that adds buttons into a toolbar for a table (copy to clipboard, save to Excel / PDF, and more).

Custom tool bar! Text/images etc.
NamePositionOfficeAgeStart dateSalary
NamePositionOfficeAgeStart dateSalary
Airi Satou Accountant Tokyo 33 2008/11/28 $162,700
Angelica Ramos Chief Executive Officer (CEO) London 47 2009/10/09 $1,200,000
Ashton Cox Junior Technical Author San Francisco 66 2009/01/12 $86,000
Bradley Greer Software Engineer London 41 2012/10/13 $132,000
Brenden Wagner Software Engineer San Francisco 28 2011/06/07 $206,850
Brielle Williamson Integration Specialist New York 61 2012/12/02 $372,000
Bruno Nash Software Engineer London 38 2011/05/03 $163,500
Caesar Vance Pre-Sales Support New York 21 2011/12/12 $106,450
Cara Stevens Sales Assistant New York 46 2011/12/06 $145,600
Cedric Kelly Senior Javascript Developer Edinburgh 22 2012/03/29 $433,060
Showing 1 to 10 of 57 entries

The Javascript shown below is used to initialise the table shown in this example:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
$(document).ready(function() {
    $('#example').DataTable( {
        "dom": '<"toolbar">frtip'
    } );
 
    $("div.toolbar").html('<b>Custom tool bar! Text/images etc.</b>');
} );

In addition to the above code, the following Javascript library files are loaded for use in this example: