Using jQuery UI sortable with HTML tables

Question

I want to output some data from the database in a HTML table, and I want the user to be able to reorder table rows. To achieve this, I used jQuery UI sortable, thus:

<script>
    $(function() {
        $( "#sortable" ).sortable();
        $( "#sortable" ).disableSelection();
    });
    </script>
<?php 
 while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($co_authors)) {
                    echo "<tr id='sortable'><td>{$row['author_email']}</td>
                         <td>{$row['coauthor_level']}</td>";
                         <td><button class='remove' id='remove' name='remove' email="<?php echo $row['author_email'] ?>"
                            paper="<?php echo $row['paper_id'] ?>">Remove</button></td>
                         </tr>";
                }
?>

The problem is that when I drag a table tr, only td are dragged. Also, and most importantly, only the first row is dragable: the effect is not applied to other rows. How can I solve this?

id attributes have to be unique within a document. Your code is creating several elements with the same id (sortable). Try using a class instead. — Frédéric Hamidi
– Frédéric Hamidi, Commented Jul 13, 2012 at 12:59
For what it's worth - tds with the contenteditable attribute don't seem to be editable if their row can be sorted using this method. Just an FYI. — jg2703
– jg2703, Commented Apr 27, 2017 at 20:02

kurdtpage · Accepted Answer · 2017-11-23 05:24:27Z

221

You can call sortable on a <tbody> instead of on the individual rows.

<table>
    <tbody>
        <tr> 
            <td>1</td>
            <td>2</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>3</td>
            <td>4</td> 
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>5</td>
            <td>6</td>
        </tr>  
    </tbody>    
</table>

<script>
    $('tbody').sortable();
</script>

$(function() {
  $( "tbody" ).sortable();
});

 
table {
    border-spacing: collapse;
    border-spacing: 0;
}
td {
    width: 50px;
    height: 25px;
    border: 1px solid black;
}

 

<link href="//code.jquery.com/ui/1.11.1/themes/smoothness/jquery-ui.css" rel="stylesheet">
<script src="//code.jquery.com/jquery-1.11.1.js"></script>
<script src="//code.jquery.com/ui/1.11.1/jquery-ui.js"></script>

<table>
    <tbody>
        <tr>
            <td>1</td>
            <td>2</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>3</td>
            <td>4</td>
        </tr>
        <tr> 
            <td>5</td>
            <td>6</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>7</td>
            <td>8</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>9</td> 
            <td>10</td>
        </tr>  
    </tbody>    
</table>

edited Nov 23, 2017 at 5:24

kurdtpage

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answered Jul 13, 2012 at 14:00

TJ VanToll

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6 Comments

Samer El Gendy Over a year ago

this working fine now, and the whole tr is dragable, but the new problem now is that the tr position doesn't change, i guess because i derive data from the database and they should come in that order, so can i change the positioning in the database too?

TJ VanToll Over a year ago

Yeah if you want to preserve the sorted positions you'll have to persist that information somewhere.

NaturalBornCamper Over a year ago

YEEES THANKS!! I was so afraid I would have to redo the whole design and I only had one hour to make it work, thanks heaps!

NathanOliver Over a year ago

Posting on behalf of user236766: you might want to change the last <tbody> to </tbody> ;)

ksudu94 Over a year ago

Don't know why the hell I decided to call sortable on the table and not the tbody element... Thanks!

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