Angular Firebase Sortable Table

What is Angular Firebase Sortable Table (AFST)?

AFST is Angular module giving a solution for common problem - creation a table with firebase as a backend. It was decided to avoid using third part services as firebase cloud functions or writing own observer servers using node. Before you start it is strongly recommended to read an this article.

Getting started

AFST is supplied with small demo (source) that shows abilities of sortable table and the way one will use it. In order to start demo locally run npm run demo.

Note: npm package is not suplied with demo source code, so visit github page to see it.

List of components:

For full documentation of each component please visit this page.

Sources:

• SortableTableComponent
• LoadingComponent
• SortableTableService
• SortableItemDirective
• DialogDirective
• InfiniteScrollDirective
• PriorityKeysPipe

Install:

npm install @nodeart/ngfb_sortable_table --save

Description:

Module is supplied with set of features that could be useful while working with tables such as search, sort, filter and infinite scroll. Due to limitations of firebase querying there are no complicated logic under the hood. According to firebase documentation one can use only one orderBy query at a time, so, unfortunately you can not combine filters.

Events table:

There are 4 types of events could happen. Each of them has its own querying rules and usage restrictions.

Events	InfiniteScroll	SortByHeader	FilterByInput	FilterBySelect
Reset previous query	false	true	true	true
Basic query	{orderByKey: true}	{limitTo(First/Last): number, orderByChild: field}	{orderByKey: true}	orderByChild: field
Priority	medium	low	low	high

Events details:

• InfiniteScroll:

  InfiniteScroll is a default event. First request to database will be done with it if no config for FilterBySelect provided. It is the only event that doesn't reset previous query, only add the offset. Fires when user is reached the bottom of the page.

  Requirements:

  • @Input pagination is passed;

• SortByHeader:

  SortByHeader is an event that happen after toggling the arrow button on sortable header items.

  Restrictions:

  • field to be sorted by has primitive value;
  • field to be sorted by is not nested inside the object;

  Resets other queries.

• FilterByInput:

  FilterByInput is an event happen when user input some data in a search string. Input is debounced by default.

  Restrictions:

  • field to be filtered by is a string;
  • field to be sorted by is not nested inside the object;

  Requirements:

  • @Input filterByInputValue is passed in;

  Resets other queries.

• FilterBySelect:

  FilterBySelect event has the greatest priority value. If it is passed in than the first request to database will be made by the rules of this event.

  Restrictions:

  • field to be filtered by has primitive value;
  • field to be filtered by is not nested inside the object;

  Requirements:

  • @Input filterBySelect is passed in;

  Resets other queries.

User components communication:

AFST is designed for following components structure:

<user-table-container-component>
    <ngfb-sortable-table>
        <!--<ng-template ngfbSortableItem></ng-template>-->
        <tr UserTableItemComponent> </tr>
    </ngfb-sortable-table>
</user-table-container-component>

According to this structure you can not directly communicate between your components. In order to do so, you can provide an @Input onChange: Function to SortableTableComponent and it will be called in two cases:

• Popup with @Input addNew: Component (passed to SortableTableComponent) close. Example
• User emits event from UserTableItemComponent. Example.

Do not forget to bind your onChange function to your component context in order to save it.

Usage tips:

• To improve firebase query performance use .indexOn rule in your database rules.
• The selector of TableItemComponent that you pass inside SortableTableComponent must be attributive in order to be properly displayed. Example: tr [sortableTableItem].
• To sort your headers use PriorityKeysPipe and pass enum with a list of headers as an argument and the list of headers you'd prefer not to show.
• Always bind setHeaders function to your container component context if you use this keyword in setHedaers function because it will be called in SortableTableComponent context. As child component doesn't not know who his parent actually is, we can't use forward ref to done this.
• As Angular 4 is released and <template></template> element is deprecated and will be replaced with <ng-template></ng-template>. We use <ng-template></ng-template> so this module is incompatible with Angular 2.

List of dependencies:

• @angular/material
• firebase
• lodash.debounce