Re-examined: How to Freeze Columns Using Javascript and HTML.
Seul, le Colosse de sable figé, rêve sa vision. The Sphinx in code! I want data like frozen sand. (I seem to enjoy the mystery of this problem.) Again, I find myself freezing columns for <table>s.
So I've done some significant re-factoring of a grid UI I began around two years ago, which I've recently re-titled "How to Freeze Columns Using Javascript and HTML."
Why? Well, I found that I had some personal coding time while coasting* with Citizens. (By the way: propped-up laptop between bucket seats, watching rented DVDs = The Joy Of Independent Touring.) And, I had an mental itch, so I scratched it.
With the re-factoring effort I basically wanted to:
- Expand support to Safari.
- Clean up the mess I'd laid for developers who have been using this as proof-of-concept.
- Respond to recent improvements in CSS and DOM support in Moz 1.5 and Firebird.
But... I want to do much more than just cleanup since I keep getting asked to create table services that manage and transform data into tables whose UI requirements are getting richer. (Frozen columns and rows, for example.)
Meaning? Meaning...so now that this example supports IE, Moz, Safari - I think I want to create a generic service which takes some XML format which decribes the layout for some set of data (how's TDF sound? Tabular Display Format) and transforms it via Javascript (or Java, or PHP, or .NET) and XSLT into a table with freezable and sortable columns that's easily resizable. Any set of data, so long as it's in TDF, could be generically transformed into a workable grid. Cross-browser! Cross-platform! Usable! Skinned with CSS!
Or...I have a bunch of "She Spies" episodes I've TiVo'd that I could watch.
Decisions, decisions.
*Coasting: driving from Oakland, CA to Seattle and back again in less than 72 hours - we are sprinters - on the faster side of what is outlined in pop/rock criticism, I suppose, by the "burning out" vs. "fading away" dichotomy. :)