[Javascript] table collapse bug in IE6?

[David Lovering]

Hmmm... most interesting.

Rather than twinking about with the visibility of each div/row object, (which may leave the borders still showing), I'd suggest removing the rows completely which you don't want to have appear, and add them again when the selection criteria so indicates.  I've done this on a production database-lookup utility I wrote a couple of years ago, and it works slick as snot.

The only consideration is that if you've got zillions of rows/columns to repaint, the rebuild of the ordered table may cause the screen image to sequentially mutate while the column widths change as new rows are inserted.  To beat that problem, I start with a "show everything" display (much as you do), record the display column widths, and then force the column width attribute to conform to that initial value.  That way the screen doesn't writhe about as things get repositioned.  Believe me, having all the columns change width on every reselect looks incredibly shabby (unprofessional, etc. etc.), and this trick lets the original dynamic column widths define what the subsequent table redraws will use -- the best of both worlds.

The other trick which makes for a neater finished product is to have two layers -- one visible (with a message of the sort "please wait while we rebuild your table image..."), and a background plane where the new table is being rebuilt.  When the onload event for the back plane object shows that the new table view is complete, simply change the z-attribute to bring the back plane to the fore (and vice-versa), and voila! the finished table reappears.  A variation is to leave the original table in view and use a floating pop-up to alert the user that the new table is being constructed, and then swap the top table-layer with the bottom just after you trash the pop-up.

QED.

-- Dave Lovering
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Paul Novitski 
  To: [JavaScript List] 
  Sent: Friday, March 26, 2004 3:19 PM
  Subject: Re: [Javascript] table collapse bug in IE6?


  Thanks for your suggestions, however I had earlier tried display:none and 
  found the problem of border ghosts remains.

  Attached is a demonstration of the problem.  (Blush: this is an old 
  workbench file, not final production code, so please excuse all the wood 
  shavings, tools lying about, and old trials commented out in the mix.)

  I imagine that this problem might not SHOW if I use fixed column widths to 
  prevent the cell borders from shifting horizontally as rows appear & 
  disappear.  However, a) I want to solve the problem if I can, not just work 
  around it, and b) I balk at pre-determining table column widths -- I'll do 
  it if I have to for a specific purpose, such as matching a table cell with 
  a contained image of fixed dimensions, but in general it feels like 
  intruding on functionality I ought to leave up to the browser so that I 
  don't have to try to anticipate future data fill needs.  The looser my 
  control on rendering niceties, the less I have to go back and tweak code as 
  conditions change.

  Paul


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