React Data GridColumn filter
Filter data by values or by a set of conditions, using Handsontable's intuitive user interface or flexible API.
- Overview
- Filtering demo
- Enable filtering
- Filter different types of data
- Filter data on initialization
- External quick filter
- Customize the filter button
- Change the width of the filter menu
- Exclude rows from filtering
- Server-side filtering
- Control filtering programmatically
- Import the filtering module
- Known limitations
- Related keyboard shortcuts
- API reference
- Troubleshooting
Overview
Filtering lets you quickly find the information that you're looking for, based on specific criteria. This makes data analysis easier and faster, especially with large data sets.
Handsontable's built-in filtering interface resembles Excel's, so it's intuitive even to non-technical users. And if you want to implement your own interface, you can easily filter data programmatically, using Handsontable's API.
You can filter data by value, or use the built-in conditions, which are different for each of the available column types.
Filtering demo
Click on one of the column menu buttons (▼) and play around with filtering by selecting values or conditions-based criteria.
After filtering, the column readjusts its width to the longest value displayed on screen. To disable this behavior, set fixed column widths.
Enable filtering
To enable the filtering interface for all columns, you need to do two things:
- Set the
filters
option totrue
. - Enable the interface by setting the
dropdownMenu
option totrue
.
Enabling the filters
option without the interface can be useful if you plan to create your own
custom interface for filtering by using the API.
<HotTable
// enable filtering
filters={true}
// enable the column menu
dropdownMenu={true}
/>
By default, the column menu presents the filtering interface along with other default items such as Insert column left. To display only the filtering interface, pass an array of filter items in the configuration.
Enable filtering for individual columns
You have control over which columns are filterable and for which columns the column menu is enabled. In the following demo, only the Brand column is filterable, while the other columns are not. However, the Model column still has the column menu available in case you want to have some useful items in the menu such as Clear column.
Filter different types of data
With its built-in cell types, Handsontable makes it easy to handle common data types like text, numbers, and dates by providing numerous configuration options. In addition, the filtering feature is designed to understand the underlying data and provides an adaptive interface that is tailored to each data type.
The following table contains all available filter operators for each built-in data type.
Cell type | Available filter operators |
---|---|
All cell types | Default operators: None Is empty Is not empty Is equal to Is not equal to |
text time checkbox dropdown autocomplete password | Default operators plus: Begins with Ends with Contains Does not contain |
numeric | Default operators plus: Greater than Greater than or equal to Less than Less than or equal to Is between Is not between |
date | Default operators plus: Before After Is between Tomorrow Today Yesterday |
Filter data on initialization
You can filter data on Handsontable's initialization. This lets you apply pre-defined filters every time you launch your grid.
To do this, use the API provided by the Filters
plugin. For instance, the demo
below demonstrates how you can start with a pre-applied filter to display only items priced less
than $200.
External quick filter
Handsontable's quick filter feature lets you search for a particular phrase in a specific column. To
accomplish this, use methods filters.addCondition()
and
filters.filter()
.
Customize the filter button
The default button that opens the column menu can be styled with CSS by modifying
button.changeType
and its ::before
pseudoclass that contains an HTML entity displaying an arrow
down icon.
The column menu button is always visible, but if you want it to appear only when the mouse cursor is
over the header, apply additional styling to th .relative:hover .changeType
.
Change the width of the filter menu
If the text data in your columns is too long to fit in the filters container, you can adjust the
column menu's width for better user experience. You can achieve this with by styling
.htDropdownMenu table.htCore
.
.handsontable .htDropdownMenu table.htCore {
width: 300px !important;
}
Exclude rows from filtering
You can exclude any number of top or bottom rows from filtering.
In the following demo, the first and the last row are frozen, and filtering doesn't affect them.
Server-side filtering
You can decide to use Handsontable as an intuitive filtering interface, but perform the actual filtering on the server.
To help you with that, Handsontable's beforeFilter()
hook allows
you to:
- Gather information about the filters that the user wants to apply, to send it to the server.
- Disable filtering on the front end, so it doesn't interfere with filtering on the server.
In the following demo, click on one of the column menu buttons (▼) and play around with filtering by selecting values or conditions-based criteria. After you click OK, the ▼ button turns green to indicate filtering, but the data is not filtered. Instead, the information about the specified filters is logged to the console.
Control filtering programmatically
You can control filtering at the grid's runtime by using Handsontable's hooks and API methods. This allows you to enable or disable filtering based on specific conditions. For example, you may create a user interface outside of the grid to manage Handsontable's filtering behavior.
Enable or disable filtering programmatically
To enable or disable filtering programmatically, use the
updateSettings()
method.
const hotTableComponentRef = useRef(null);
hotTableComponentRef.current.hotInstance.updateSettings({
// enable filtering
filters: true,
// enable the column menu
dropdownMenu: true,
});
hotTableComponentRef.current.hotInstance.updateSettings({
// disable filtering
filters: false,
});
You can also enable or disable filtering for specific columns. For example, to enable filtering only for the first column:
const hotTableComponentRef = useRef(null);
hotTableComponentRef.current.hotInstance.updateSettings({
// enable filtering for all columns
filters: true,
// enable the column menu for all columns
// but display only the 'Filter by value' list and the 'OK' and 'Cancel' buttons
dropdownMenu: {
items: {
filter_by_value: {
// hide the 'Filter by value' list from all columns but the first one
hidden() {
return this.getSelectedRangeLast().to.col > 0;
},
},
filter_action_bar: {
// hide the 'OK' and 'Cancel' buttons from all columns but the first one
hidden() {
return this.getSelectedRangeLast().to.col > 0;
},
},
},
},
});
Filter data programmatically
To filter data programmatically, use the Filters
plugin's API. Remember to
enable filtering first.
Mind that before you apply new filter conditions, you need to clear the previous ones with
filters.clearConditions()
.
Import the filtering module
You can reduce the size of your bundle by importing and registering only the modules that you need.
To use filtering, you need only the following modules:
- The base module
- The
Filters
module - The
DropdownMenu
module
// import the base module
import Handsontable from 'handsontable/base';
// import Handsontable's CSS
import 'handsontable/dist/handsontable.full.min.css';
// import the filtering plugins
import { registerPlugin, Filters, DropdownMenu } from 'handsontable/plugins';
// register the filtering plugins
registerPlugin(Filters);
registerPlugin(DropdownMenu);
Known limitations
At the moment, filtering comes with the following limitations:
- There is no easy way to add custom filter operators to the user interface.
- The list of values that you can filter by is generated automatically and there's no supported way of modifying it.
Related keyboard shortcuts
Windows | macOS | Action | Excel | Sheets |
---|---|---|---|---|
Alt+A | Option+A | Clear all filters | ✗ | ✗ |
API reference
For the list of options, methods, and Handsontable hooks related to filtering, see the following API reference pages:
Troubleshooting
Didn't find what you need? Try this:
- View related topics (opens new window) on GitHub
- Report an issue (opens new window) on GitHub
- Ask a question (opens new window) on Stack Overflow
- Start a discussion (opens new window) on Handsontable's forum
- Contact our technical support (opens new window) to get help