About Column and its Named Children

The main table components used to display tabular data are table and column. A data table is created by a series of column elements as indexed children of table. By themselves, table and column do not display anything visible until data is configured or "stamped" in the cells of the table.

Table with column headers and row headers

Use column to encapsulate all the information that describes a table column into one entity instead of using a variety of table column attributes (e.g., column formats, column header data, column header formats) set globally on the table. When column attributes are specified, they override any values for column formats and stamps specified on table.

You can use column for any, all, or none of the columns in a table component. The attributes you can set for column are:

columnFormat - Specifies the formatting information for the entire column. This complex attribute can be databound using an EL syntax expression. The column formats allowed are:
- bandingShade - Specifies the formatting for a column. Two values are allowed:
  - dark - Default. The column is shaded dark.
  - light - The column is shaded light.
- cellNoWrapFormat - Specifies a boolean value that determines whether the column will be rendered by wrapping the cell contents in multiple lines. Default is false, that is, wrapping is allowed.
- columnDataFormat - Specifies the data formatting for column cells. Three values are allowed:
  - textFormat - Default. The column cell data is left aligned. For displaying text data.
  - numberFormat - The column cell data is right aligned. For displaying numbers.
  - iconButtonFormat - The column cell data is center aligned. For displaying icons and buttons.
- displayGrid - Specifies a boolean value that determines whether a grid line is displayed before the column's content. By default, a grid line is shown to the left of every column, in a left-to-right locale.
- width - Specifies the width of the column in pixels or as a percentage.
columnHeaderData - Specifies the data for the header of this column.
columnHeaderFormat - Specifies the formatting for the header of this column, whether cellNoWrapFormat is turned on or off.
inlineStyle - Specifies the inline CSS style to use.
nameTransformed - Specifies a boolean value that determines whether this column should turn on or off name transformation when rendering data controls. By default name transformation is on, unless nameTransformed on the table has been set to false.
useSeparateRows - Specifies a boolean value that determines whether the indexed children of this column should be rendered on separate rows.

Column named children

The column component supports the following named children:

columnHeader - Use the columnHeader named child to provide a label for the header of this column. The preferred child to insert is styledText. For sortable column headers, insert the sortableHeader element.
footer - Use the footer named child to present a summary of the data at the bottom of this column. Any child component can be inserted into the footer.

Column indexed children

Each column stamp gets its visible contents to stamp (or render) from the indexed children of column. The indexed children can be text, buttons, or any other components. Set the useSeparateRows attribute to true if you wish to display the indexed children on separate rows in each column cell.

Table with 2 rows in each 1st column cell