Javascript – Making a Table Row clickable

htmljavascript

I wonder what the best way to make an entire tr clickable would be?

The most common (and only?) solution seems to be using JavaScript, by using onclick="javascript:document.location.href('bla.htm');" (not to forget: Setting a proper cursor with onmouseover/onmouseout).

While that works, it is a pity that the target URL is not visible in the status bar of a browser, unlike normal links.

So I just wonder if there is any room for optimization? Is it possible to display the URL that will be navigated to in the status bar of the browser? Or is there even a non-JavaScript way to make a tr clickable?

Best Solution

If you don't want to use javascript, you can do what Chris Porter suggested by wrapping each td element's content in matching anchor tags. Then set the anchor tags to display: block and set the height and line-height to be the same as the td's height. You should then find that the td's touch seamlessly and the effect is that the whole row is clickable. Watch out for padding on the td, which will cause gaps in the clickable area. Instead, apply padding to the anchor tags as it will form part of the clickable area if you do that.

I also like to set the row up to have a highlight effect by applying a different background color on tr:hover.

Example

For the latest Bootstrap (version 3.0.2), here's some quick CSS to show how this can be done:

table.row-clickable tbody tr td {
    padding: 0;
}

table.row-clickable tbody tr td a {
    display: block;
    padding: 8px;
}

Here's a sample table to work with:

<table class="table table-hover row-clickable">
    <tbody>
        <tr>
            <td><a href="#">Column 1</a></td>
            <td><a href="#">Column 2</a></td>
            <td><a href="#">Column 3</a></td>
        </tr>
    </tbody>
</table>

Here's an example showing this in action.

Related Solutions

Javascript – Add table row in jQuery

The approach you suggest is not guaranteed to give you the result you're looking for - what if you had a tbody for example:

<table id="myTable">
  <tbody>
    <tr>...</tr>
    <tr>...</tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

You would end up with the following:

<table id="myTable">
  <tbody>
    <tr>...</tr>
    <tr>...</tr>
  </tbody>
  <tr>...</tr>
</table>

I would therefore recommend this approach instead:

$('#myTable tr:last').after('<tr>...</tr><tr>...</tr>');

You can include anything within the after() method as long as it's valid HTML, including multiple rows as per the example above.

Update: Revisiting this answer following recent activity with this question. eyelidlessness makes a good comment that there will always be a tbody in the DOM; this is true, but only if there is at least one row. If you have no rows, there will be no tbody unless you have specified one yourself.

DaRKoN_ suggests appending to the tbody rather than adding content after the last tr. This gets around the issue of having no rows, but still isn't bulletproof as you could theoretically have multiple tbody elements and the row would get added to each of them.

Weighing everything up, I'm not sure there is a single one-line solution that accounts for every single possible scenario. You will need to make sure the jQuery code tallies with your markup.

I think the safest solution is probably to ensure your table always includes at least one tbody in your markup, even if it has no rows. On this basis, you can use the following which will work however many rows you have (and also account for multiple tbody elements):

$('#myTable > tbody:last-child').append('<tr>...</tr><tr>...</tr>');

Html – Space between two rows in a table

You need to use padding on your td elements. Something like this should do the trick. You can, of course, get the same result using a top padding instead of a bottom padding.

In the CSS code below, the greater-than sign means that the padding is only applied to td elements that are direct children to tr elements with the class spaceUnder. This will make it possible to use nested tables. (Cell C and D in the example code.) I'm not too sure about browser support for the direct child selector (think IE 6), but it shouldn't break the code in any modern browsers.

/* Apply padding to td elements that are direct children of the tr elements with class spaceUnder. */

tr.spaceUnder>td {
  padding-bottom: 1em;
}

<table>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>A</td>
      <td>B</td>
    </tr>
    <tr class="spaceUnder">
      <td>C</td>
      <td>D</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>E</td>
      <td>F</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

This should render somewhat like this:

+---+---+
| A | B |
+---+---+
| C | D |
|   |   |
+---+---+
| E | F |
+---+---+

Best Solution

Example

Related Solutions

Javascript – Add table row in jQuery

Html – Space between two rows in a table

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