How to make editable table rows

[ed2050]

This question has come up in forum before. Such as #3754.

Here's my solution to making a table with editable rows. It uses brython to run python code in the browser, instead of messing with javascript and quasar / vue slots.

Problem

Some notes on the problem.

• We want a button to edit the data in each row of table
• nicegui doesn't provide this feature
• nicegui doesn't let us edit table rows or cells directly. ui.table objects only allow manipulating the top-level table.
• nicegui makes it easy to put edit buttons elsewhere on the page. we just can't place them inside of table objects.
• changing rows or cells inside the table object requires internal knowledge of vue / quasar and slots.

Approach

Instead of putting edit buttons directly inside the table, we can break the problem into 2 parts:

1. Put edit buttons anywhere on the page.
2. Move edit buttons next to corresponding row.

This approach avoids any knowledge of slots or js or vue / quasar. Part 1 is trivial with nicegui. For part 2, we'll use brython to reposition buttons dynamically.

Solution

Here's a screenshot of the end result. The edit drawer on right isn't fully implemented. I just put a drawer showing the item, you can replace with item edit fields as needed.

Entire solution is available in these 2 files:

• edit-table.py our nicegui file
• rowedit.py our brython file

Just put them in same directory and run python edit-table.py.

Code

I'll explain the solution in snippets. Let's start with our nicegui code.

Nicegui page

First our page function. It's very straightforward. Make random table data, set columns, build table, add edit buttons.

Things to note:

• every data item needs a unique identifier for our solution to work. this example uses uid field.
• we put class editable on first table cell in each row, so brython can find them all.
• we put class uid-XXXX on first table cell so brython can find the uid for that row.
• edit buttons for each data item pop up a right drawer for editing, per OP's request. for this example, we just display the data and close the drawer. you can add actual editing code as you like.

---------- Show code ----------

@ui.page ('/')
def mainpage () :

    shared_headers ()

    # --- make random data
    data = [
        {
            'uid'   : random.randint (1000, 10 * 1000) ,
            'file'  : ''.join (random.choices (string.ascii_lowercase, k = 10)) ,
            'size'  : random.randint (2**8, 2**14) ,
            'mtime' : random.randint (14e8 , 17e8) ,  # timestamp in seconds
            'long stuff' : ''.join (random.choices (string.ascii_lowercase, k = 50)) ,
        }
        for x in range (50)
    ]

    # --- make column settings
    cols   = []
    fields = list (data [0])

    for field in fields :
        cols.append ({
            'name'  : field ,
            'label' : field.title () ,
            'field' : field ,
            'align' : 'left' ,
        })

    # add uid to class of first cell
    cols [0] [':classes'] = 'row => "editable uid-" + row.uid'

    # --- make table
    print (f'{ data [0] = }')
    print ('cols = ' + json.dumps (cols, indent = '\t'))

    table = ui.table (
        columns = cols ,
        rows    = data ,
        pagination = { 'rowsPerPage' : 20 } ,
    ).props ('id=mytable')

    # --- make edit buttons
    # nicegui / quasar dont let us manipulate table rows directly, because reasons :/
    # instead we'll add edit buttons here and re-position later

    def edit_row (item) :
        drawer = ui.right_drawer ()
        with drawer :
            # put whatever edit fields you want here
            ui.label (str (item))

            save = ui.button ('save')
            save.on ('click', lambda : drawer.toggle ())

    for item in data :
        editbutton = ui.button (icon = 'edit').classes ('rowedit')
        editbutton.props (f'id=button-{ item ["uid"] }')

        # set default arg on lambda or will always use last item in data
        editbutton.on ('click', lambda item = item :  edit_row (item))

Loading Brython

Now some plumbing. Our nicegui page needs a way to include and launch brython code. We do that in the shared_headers () call, which is shared with all our nicegui pages. shared_headers adds scripts and stylesheets to document head, so we need to call it before building the page.

Things to note:

• first we have a js code snippet to launch brython. I normally keep this in a separate file, but for simplicity included it inline.
• we also load 2 js files for brython itself: brython.min.js for the interpreter and brython.stdlib.js for python stdlib. stdlib file is optional, we don't actually use it in this example. See more here.
• the brython script for this example is in the file rowedit.py, which is added to page head with type "text/python". brython will detect and execute this script.

---------- Show code ----------

# js snippet to launch brython after doc loads
launcher = '''
console.log ('brython launcher loading') ;
var modpaths = [
    '/urlpath/to/my/brython/modules' ,
] ;

var launched = false ;  // guard to prevent loading multiple times

function launch ()
{
    if (! launched) {
        console.log ('launching brython...') ;
        brython ({ pythonpath : modpaths }) ;
        launched = true ;
    }
}

document.addEventListener ('DOMContentLoaded', launch) ;
console.log ('brython launcher loaded') ;
'''

# ------------------------------------------------

def shared_headers () :
    'add shared page headers with scripts and styles'

    jscripts = [
        'https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/brython@3.13.0/brython.min.js' ,
        'https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/brython@3.13.0/brython_stdlib.js' ,
    ]

    # get url to local file with brython code
    editscript = app.add_static_file (local_file = 'rowedit.py')
    pscripts = [ editscript ]

    for src in jscripts :
        ui.add_head_html (f'<script type="text/javascript" src="{ src }"> </script>')

    for src in pscripts :
        ui.add_head_html (f'<script type="text/python" src="{ src }"> </script>')

    # add brython launch code
    ui.add_head_html (f'<script type="text/javascript"> { launcher } </script>')

    # --- add stylesheet with default styles
    styles = '''
        #mytable { margin-left : 5em ; }
        .hide    { display : none ; }
    '''
    ui.add_head_html (f'<style type="text/css"> { styles } </style>')

Brython Script

Here's the meat of our approach. Our brython script scans the page for table cells and moves the corresponding button next to them. Let's start with the place_button function that takes a table cell as arg, finds corresponding button, calculates new position, and places it.

---------- Show code ----------

gap = 10  # leave small space between button and table

def place_button (node) :
    'place edit button next to node'

    log (f'place button : node = { str (node) }')

    uid    = [ x.split ('-') [-1] for x in node.classList if x.startswith ('uid-') ] [0]
    button = doc.querySelector (f'#button-{ uid }')

    log (f'found uid = { uid }')

    # make button visible
    button.classList.remove ('hide')

    coords = node.getBoundingClientRect ()
    width  = button.getBoundingClientRect ().width

    # get doc origin coords to translate from boundingrect to absolute css
    # Bounding Rect coords are positive / negative based on current view area
    # while css coords are always positive starting at 0,0 in top left of page
    docpos  = doc.body.getBoundingClientRect ()
    doctop  = docpos.top
    docleft = docpos.left

    button.style.left = f'{ coords.left - docleft - width - gap }px'
    button.style.top  = f'{ coords.top  - doctop }px'
    button.style.position = 'absolute'

    return

Next we have a function scan_rows to scan the doc for all visible table rows and call place_button on each.

---------- Show code ----------

def scan_rows () :
    'scan doc for visible rows and place edit buttons next to them'

    # hide all edit buttons on page
    buttons = doc.querySelectorAll (f'.rowedit')
    for button in buttons :
        button.classList.add ('hide')

    # get visible table cells
    cells = doc.querySelectorAll (f'td.editable')  # cells with editable class
    for cell in cells :
        try :
            place_button (cell)
        except Exception as e :
            warn (f'place button failed : { cell } : { e }')

Finally, we need a small piece of code to update the buttons when rows change (ie when user clicks pagination controls to view next / previous page of data). We'll make a mutation observer function watch_rows to listen for change in the DOM and call scan_rows to update.

---------- Show code ----------

def watch_rows (mutlist, observer) :
    'watch for new table rows in document'

    nodechanges = any ([ mut.addedNodes for mut in mutlist ])
    if nodechanges :
        scan_rows ()

# ------------------------------------------------

log ('adding row watcher mut obs')

mutob = window.MutationObserver.new (watch_rows)
mutob.observe (doc.body, { 'subtree' : true , 'childList' : true , 'attributes' : false })

# init page
scan_rows ()

Features

Why I like this approach better than vue / quasar / slots approach:

• pure python. the only js is a small stub once per page to start brython
• code separation. my code doesn't need to know anything about quasar / vue internals and slots, which may change in future. my code just uses standard DOM methds and CSS positioning.
• broadly applicable to a wide range of problems. quasar slots only help with tables, and maybe a few other types of controls. whereas brython can create almost any type of functionality.
• brython has access to DOM and can do things nicegui can't. Some issues are easier to handle in the browser / frontend.
• no round trip communication. features implemented in brython happen locally, no back and forth with server. not really an issue in this example, but for other uses it can help.
• it's easy to understand. less than 40 lines of brython code, ignoring comments, blank lines, and boilerplate. plus a few extra lines in nicegui code to launch brython, which I already need anyway for other nicegui pages with brython scripts.

Potential Drawbacks

The brython approach does have a few differences that some might consider drawbacks (they're strengths to me):

• needs some basic knowledge of DOM and CSS. It's not hard to pickup though, and very useful to have.
• adds a new dependency on brython. it's stable and been around quite awhile, with good docs. but it's another item in the stack.
• if you need to maintain state between brython and nicegui, then it takes a bit more work. brython works best in situations like this one where frontend changes (edit button placement) don't affect backend data.

That's off the top of my head.

More info

For more info, check out brython docs, in particular:

• FAQ
• compatibility with python (only a few diffs due to limitations of browser environment)
• list of available python modules

Possible Improvements

There are many ways to possibly improve the code. A few that come to mind:

• you could do more checks in mutation observer watch_rows to only act on changes which affect the table, instead of reacting to every change on the page. I didn't bother because I wanted to keep the code clean, if a bit inefficient. If you update other parts of the page often, you'll call scan_rows a lot unnecessarily.
• if you really need to be efficient, you can catch changes to the table and debounce calls to scan_rows.
• Instead of just positioning the edit buttons with css, you might use brython to actually move the button node inside the table row it belongs to. I didn't try it, could potentially interfere with nicegui's view of the page.
• querySelectorAll is a bit inefficient. You could try giving table cells (or rows) an id instead of classes for scan_rows to locate them. I don't know how hard that would be. Manipulating table cells / rows in nicegui is difficult.
• you should probably download brython files and load from your own server, instead of using jsdelivr.net which may be unreachable or slower than local delivery.

Files

Entire solution is available in these 2 files:

• edit-table.py, our nicegui file
• rowedit.py, our brython file

Just put them in same directory and run python edit-table.py.

[ed2050]

You might be able to do the same thing with pure css3 instead of brython. With calc() expressions and setting vars, you could write rules for each row and button from unique class / id selectors. Nicegui page function would generate css rules each time page loads; you wouldn't want to hand code them.

I don't like pure css approach because css is tricky. Execution order isn't always clear, and css application rules lead to surprising results. There may be conflicts with quasar or tailwind rules. Personally I wouldn't attempt this way. But it may be possible.