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Formatters

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Definition

Formatters are functions that can be used to change and format certain column(s) in the grid. Please note that it does not alter the input data, it simply changes the styling by formatting the data differently to the screen (what the user visually see).

A good example of a Formatter could be a column name isActive which is a boolean field with input data as True or False. User would prefer to simply see a checkbox as a visual indication representing the True flag, for this behavior you can use Formatters.checkmarkMaterial which will use optional SVG icons of mdi-check when True or an empty string when False.

For a UI sample, scroll down below.

Provided Formatters

Slickgrid-Universal ships with a few Formatters by default which helps with common fields, you can see the entire list here.

Note you might not need a Formatter when a simple CSS style and class might be enough, think about using cssClass column property as much as possible since it has much better perf.

List of provided Formatters

  • arrayObjectToCsv: Takes an array of complex objects converts it to a comma delimited string.

  • arrayToCsv : takes an array of text and returns it as CSV string

  • checkmarkMaterial use Material Design to display a checkmark icon

  • collection: Looks up values from the columnDefinition.params.collection property and displays the label in CSV or string format

  • complexObject: takes a complex object (with a field that has a . notation) and pull correct value, there are multiple ways to use it

    1. { id: 'firstName', field: 'user.firstName', formatter: Formatters.complexObject}, will display the user's first name

    2. { id: 'firstName', field: 'user', labelKey: 'firstName', params: { complexField: 'user' }, ... }

    3. { id: 'firstName', field: 'user', params: { complexField: 'user.firstName' }, ... }

  • currency: will help with currency other than dollar (ie €), there are multiple params available for this formatter

    • currencyPrefix, currencySuffix, minDecimal, maxDecimal, numberPrefix, numberSuffix, decimalSeparator, thousandSeparator and displayNegativeNumberWithParentheses

    • the distinction between numberPrefix and currencyPrefix can be seen when using displayNegativeNumberWithParentheses, for example if we have a value of -12.432 with the Formatters.currency and params: { currencyPrefix: '€', numberPrefix: 'Price ', numberSuffix: 'EUR' } the output will be "Price (€12.432) EUR"

  • dateEuro: Takes a Date object and displays it as an Euro Date format (DD/MM/YYYY)

  • dateTimeEuro: Takes a Date object and displays it as an Euro Date+Time format (DD/MM/YYYY HH:mm:ss)

  • dateTimeShortEuro: Takes a Date object and displays it as an Euro Date+Time (without seconds) format (DD/MM/YYYY HH:mm)

  • dateTimeEuroAmPm: Takes a Date object and displays it as an Euro Date+Time+(am/pm) format (DD/MM/YYYY hh:mm:ss a)

  • dateIso : Takes a Date object and displays it as an ISO Date format (YYYY-MM-DD)

  • dateTimeIso : Takes a Date object and displays it as an ISO Date+Time format (YYYY-MM-DD HH:mm:ss)

  • dateTimeIsoAmPm : Takes a Date object and displays it as an ISO Date+Time+(am/pm) format (YYYY-MM-DD h:mm:ss a)

  • dateTimeShortIso: Takes a Date object and displays it as an ISO Date+Time (without seconds) format (YYYY-MM-DD HH:mm)

  • dateUs : Takes a Date object and displays it as an US Date format (MM/DD/YYYY)

  • dateTimeUs : Takes a Date object and displays it as an US Date+Time format (MM/DD/YYYY HH:mm:ss)

  • dateTimeShortUs: Takes a Date object and displays it as an US Date+Time (without seconds) format (MM/DD/YYYY HH:mm:ss)

  • dateTimeUsAmPm : Takes a Date object and displays it as an US Date+Time+(am/pm) format (MM/DD/YYYY hh:mm:ss a)

  • dateUtc : Takes a Date object and displays it as a TZ format (YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssZ)

  • decimal: Display the value as x decimals formatted, defaults to 2 decimals. You can pass "minDecimal" and/or "maxDecimal" to the "params" property.

  • dollar: Display the value as 2 decimals formatted with dollar sign '$' at the end of of the value.

  • dollarColored: Display the value as 2 decimals formatted with dollar sign '$' at the end of of the value, change color of text to red/green on negative/positive value

  • dollarColoredBoldFormatter: Display the value as 2 decimals formatted with dollar sign '$' at the end of of the value, change color of text to red/green on negative/positive value, show it in bold font weight as well

  • hyperlink: takes a URL cell value and wraps it into a clickable hyperlink <a href="value">value</a>

    • the cell value must contain (ftp://abc, http://abc or https://abc), if it doesn't then use fakeHyperlink

  • hyperlinkUriPrefix: format a URI prefix into an hyperlink

  • icon: to display an icon with defined CSS class name, use params to pass a cssClass property

  • iconBoolean: similar to icon but will only be displayed on a Boolean truthy value, use params to pass a cssClass property

  • mask: to change the string output using a mask, use params to pass a mask property

    • example: { field: 'phone', formatter: Formatters.mask, params: { mask: '(000) 000-0000' }}

  • multiple: pipe multiple formatters (executed in sequence), use params to pass the list of formatters.

    • example: { field: 'title', formatter: Formatters.multiple, params: { formatters: [ Formatters.lowercase, Formatters.uppercase ] }

  • percent: Takes a cell value number (between 0.0-1.0) and displays a red (<50) or green (>=50) bar

  • percentComplete : takes a percentage value (0-100%), displays a bar following this logic:

    • red: < 30%, grey: < 70%, green: >= 70%

  • percentCompleteBar : same as percentComplete but uses Bootstrap - Progress Bar with label.

  • percentCompleteBarWithText: Takes a cell value number (between 0-100) and displays SlickGrid custom "percent-complete-bar" with Text a red (<30), silver (>30 & <70) or green (>=70) bar

  • percentSymbol: Takes a cell value number (between 0-100) and add the "%" after the number

  • progressBar: Takes a cell value number (between 0-100) and displays Bootstrap "progress-bar" a red (<30), silver (>30 & <70) or green (>=70) bar

  • translate: Takes a cell value and translates it (i18n). Requires an instance of the Translate Service:: `i18n: this.translate

  • translateBoolean: Takes a boolean value, cast it to upperCase string and finally translates it (i18n).

  • tree: Formatter that must be used when the column is a Tree Data column

Note: The list is certainly not up to date (especially for Dates), please refer to the Formatters export to know exactly which formatters are available.

Note all Date formatters are formatted using Tempo. There are also many more Date formats not shown above, simply visit the formatters.index to see all available Date/Time formats.

Usage

To use any of them, you simply need to import Formatters from Slickgrid-Universal and add a formatter: Formatters.xyz (where xyx is the name of the built-in formatter) in your column definitions as shown below:

TypeSript

import { Formatters } from 'slickgrid-universal';

export class Example {
  columnDefinitions: Column[];
  gridOptions: GridOption;
  dataset: any[];

  constructor() {
    // define the grid options & columns and then create the grid itself
    this.defineGrid();
  }

  defineGrid() {
    this.columnDefinitions = [
      { id: 'title', name: 'Title', field: 'title' },
      { id: 'duration', name: 'Duration (days)', field: 'duration' },
      { id: '%', name: '% Complete', field: 'percentComplete', formatter: Formatters.percentComplete },
      { id: 'start', name: 'Start', field: 'start', formatter: Formatters.dateIso },
      { id: 'finish', name: 'Finish', field: 'finish', formatter: Formatters.dateIso },
      { id: 'effort-driven', name: 'Effort Driven', field: 'effortDriven', formatter: Formatters.checkmarkMaterial }
    ];
  }
}

Extra Arguments/Params

What if you want to pass extra arguments that you want to use within the Formatter? You should use params for that. For example, let say you have a custom formatter to build a select list (dropdown), you could do it this way:

let optionList = ['True', 'False'];

this.columnDefinitions = [
      { id: 'title', field: 'title',
        headerTranslate: 'TITLE',
        formatter: myCustomSelectFormatter,
        params: { options: optionList }
      },

Using Multiple Formatters

SlickGrid only has 1 formatter property but if you want to use more than 1 Formatter then you'll want to use the Formatters.multiple and pass every Formatters inside your column definition params: { formatters: [] } as shown below.

Note: please note that combining multiple Formatters has the side effect of cascading the formatted value output to the next Formatter. So for example if you use the complexObject and dollar Formatters, you want to make sure to define them in the correct order in your formatters: [] array as shown below.

  • what if you want to avoid overwriting the value with a Custom Formatter?

// Data Example::
// data = [{ shipping: { cost: 123.22, address: { zip: 123456 } } }];

this.columnDefinitions = [
  {
    id: 'shippingCost', field: 'shipping.cost', name: 'Shipping Cost',
    formatter: Formatters.multiple,
    params: {
      // list of Formatters (the order is very important)
      formatters: [Formatters.complexObject, Formatters.dollar],
    }
  },
];

Custom Formatter

You could also create your own custom Formatter by simply following the structure shown below.

TypeScript function signature

export type Formatter = (row: number, cell: number, value: any, columnDef: Column, dataContext: any, grid?: any) => string | FormatterResultObject;

FormatterResultObject

The most common return result of a Formatter is a string but you could also use the FormatterResultObject which is an object with the interface signature shown below. The main difference is that it will allow to add CSS classes directly to the cell container instead of having to create an extra <div> container and since that is the main cell container, you can add multiple Formatters to add/remove multiple CSS classes on that same container.

export interface FormatterResultObject {
  addClasses?: string;
  removeClasses?: string;
  text: string;
  toolTip?: string;
}

Example of a Custom Formatter with HTML string

For example, we will use our optional SVG icons .mdi with a boolean as input data, and display a (fire) icon when True or a (snowflake) when False. This custom formatter is actually display in the UI sample shown below.

// create a custom Formatter with the Formatter type
const myCustomCheckboxFormatter: Formatter = (row: number, cell: number, value: any, columnDef: Column, dataContext: any) =>
  value ? `<i class="mdi mdi-fire" aria-hidden="true"></i>` : '<i class="mdi mdi-snowflake" aria-hidden="true"></i>';

Example with FormatterResultObject instead of a string

Using this object return type will provide the user the same look and feel, it will actually be quite different. The major difference is that all of the options (addClasses, tooltip, ...) will be added the CSS container of the cell instead of the content of that container. For example a typically cell looks like the following <div class="slick-cell l4 r4">Task 4</div> and if use addClasses: 'red', it will end up being <div class="slick-cell l4 r4 red">Task 4</div> while if we use a string output of let say <span class="red">${value></span>, then our final result of the cell will be <div class="slick-cell l4 r4"><span class="red">Task 4</span></div>. This can be useful if you plan to use multiple Formatters and don't want to lose or overwrite the previous Formatter result (we do that in our project).

// create a custom Formatter and returning a string and/or an object of type FormatterResultObject
const myCustomCheckboxFormatter: Formatter = (row: number, cell: number, value: any, columnDef: Column, dataContext: any, grid?: any) =>
  value ? { addClasses: 'mdi mdi-fire', text: '', tooltip: 'burning fire' } : '<i class="mdi mdi-snowflake" aria-hidden="true"></i>';

Example of Custom Formatter with Native DOM Element

Since version 4.x, you can now also return native DOM element instead of an HTML string. There are 2 main reasons for going with this approach:

  1. CSP Safe by default, since it's native it is 100% CSP Safe (CSP: Content Security Policy)

  2. Performance (the reasons are similar to point 1.)

    • since it's native it can be appended directly to the grid cell

    • when it's an HTML string, it has to do 2 extra steps (which is an overhead process) i. sanitize the string (when a sanitizer, for example DOMPurify) ii. SlickGrid then has to convert it to native element by using innerHTML on the grid cell

Demo

export const iconFormatter: Formatter = (_row, _cell, _value, columnDef) => {
  const iconElm = document.createElement('span');
  iconElm.className = 'mdi mdi-check';

  return iconElm;
};

Note you could also use our helper createDomElement which allows to create a DOM element and pass properties like className in 1 liner (and it also works with intellisense). For example createDomElement('span', { className: 'bold title', textContent: 'Hello World', title: 'some tooltip description' }) would equal to 4 lines of code.

More Complex Example

If you need to add more complex logic to a Formatter, you can take a look at the percentCompleteBar Formatter for more inspiration.

Common Formatter Options

You can set some defined common Formatter Options in your Grid Options through the formatterOptions in the Grid Options (locally or globally) as seen below, and/or independently through the column definition params (the option names are the same in both locations)

loadGrid() {
  this.columnDefinitions = [
    // through the column definition "params"
    { id: 'price', field: 'price', params: { thousandSeparator: ',' } },
  ];

  // or through grid options to make it global
  this.gridOptions = {
    autoResize: {
      containerId: 'demo-container',
      sidePadding: 15
    },
    enableAutoResize: true,

    // you customize the date separator through "formatterOptions"
    formatterOptions: {
      // What separator to use to display a Date, for example using "." it could be "2002.01.01"
      dateSeparator: '/', // can be any of '/' | '-' | '.' | ' ' | ''

      // Defaults to dot ".", separator to use as the decimal separator, example $123.55 or $123,55
      decimalSeparator: ',', // can be any of '.' | ','

      // Defaults to false, option to display negative numbers wrapped in parentheses, example: -$12.50 becomes ($12.50)
      displayNegativeNumberWithParentheses: true,

      // Defaults to undefined, minimum number of decimals
      minDecimal: 2,

      // Defaults to undefined, maximum number of decimals
      maxDecimal: 4,

      // Defaults to undefined, add a prefix when using `Formatters.decimal` (only) which can be used for example to display a currency.
      // output: € 123.45'
      numberPrefix: '€ ',

      // Defaults to undefined, add a suffix when using `Formatters.decimal` (only) which can be used for example to display a currency.
      // output: '123.45 €'
      numberSuffix: ' €',

      // Defaults to empty string, thousand separator on a number. Example: 12345678 becomes 12,345,678
      thousandSeparator: '_', // can be any of ',' | '_' | ' ' | ''
    },
  }
}

PostRender Formatter

SlickGrid also support Post Render Formatter (asynchronously) via the Column property asyncPostRender (you will also need to enable in the grid options via enableAsyncPostRender). When would you want to use this? It's useful if your formatter is expected to take a while to render, like showing a graph with Sparklines, and you don't want to delay rendering your grid, the Post Render will happen after all the grid is loaded.

To see it in action, from the 6pac samples, click here Code example:

const renderSparklineFormatter: Formatter = (row: number, cell: number, value: any, columnDef: Column, dataContext: any) => {
    var vals = [
      dataContext['n1'],
      dataContext['n2'],
      dataContext['n3'],
      dataContext['n4'],
      dataContext['n5']
    ];
    $(cellNode).empty().sparkline(vals, { width: '100%' });
  }

 defineGrid() {
   this.columnDefinitions = [
      { id: 'title', name: 'Title', field: 'title' },
      { id: 'chart', name: 'Chart', sortable: false, width: 60,
         formatter: waitingFormatter,
         rerenderOnResize: true,
         asyncPostRender: renderSparklineFormatter
      }
    ];
 }
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