Spotfire Ideas Portal
Currently tables in Spotfire look very ugly, not user friendly, have static widths and always laden with scrollbars and no built-in search functionality. Our users didn't want to use them.
If you look at jQuery dataTables as an example of what a modern web application table should look like - you can see the value a few simple features would add.
1. Table should have the option for auto-width - this means it dynamically sets its width to the width of the container it is in and the individual column widths are treated as a %.
2. Columns should be able to have min-width as a % or a pixel value; a fixed value or by default - a % of the table width based upon the user adjusting the width of the column in the visualisation
3. Enable column search - this adds a search FILTER to the top of the table visualisation (see jQuery dataTables as example). in the table setup - you can specify which columns the search works across and when it finds part strings, values, etc... it filters to just those rows.
4. I think you have sorted this in 7.6 - but text-alignment and formatting (both font and value type formatting) of COLUMNS in ALL tableplot types - not just cross tables but summary tables and graphical tables too.
Currently we are having to build our own HTML tables and aggregate the data via scripts because the current graphical and cross tab tables are really ugly and not very functional.
1
Future Consideration
Would also add the Hierarchy axis on Cross Tables to be auto width. When you expand the Hierarchy you end up having to make the width correct every time.
With regards to point 1 above, many of our customers have widely varying screen sizes and the dxps just look terrible on some of them and only take up half the screen. Auto-fit column width is essential, and there should be a max and min setting as well, so that columns do not become too wide even for a very wide screen or too small for a thin one.
Yeah you're absolutely correct - screenshot with an example of how we do this with a text area above a table which is good and way better than other platforms. But there's great options available if you're looking at re-working tables where you can just enable searching on a column as either a drop down selector or a text search... see here in jQuery dataTables as a great example - the search at the top can search across any columns you nominate... with individual column searches also available which provides multi-filtering.
Dave, on issue 3 I assume you would be able to acheive this by a normal text filter in a text area? But perhaps you are looking for having the similar capability inside the table to avoid to have to use a text area at all for this case?