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MooTools Zebra Tables Plugin

Tabular data can oftentimes be boring, but it doesn't need to look that way! With a small MooTools class, I can make tabular data extremely easy to read by implementing "zebra" tables -- tables with alternating row background colors.

The CSS

.highlight		{ background:#d5fcdc; }
.even			{ background:#fff; }
.mo			{ background:#e3f1fb; }
.odd			{ background:#eee; }
.zebra th		{ padding:5px; background:#ddd; border-bottom:1px solid #999; text-align:left; font-weight:bold; }
.zebra td		{ padding:5px 20px 5px 5px; border-bottom:1px solid #ddd; }

The above CSS is extremely basic. I've styled the <TH> tag so that it stands out from table rows. There are four states of rows in my zebra table: highlighted (or "clicked on"), regular even and odd, and a mouseover state -- these are represented by the "even", "mo", "highlight", and "odd" classes. I've added padding and a bottom border to the <TD>'s for presentation.

The XHTML

<table class="zebra" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
	<tr>
		<th>Award</th>
		<th>Actor</th>
		<th>Film</th>
	</tr>
	<tr>
		<td>Actor In A Leading Role</td>
		<td>Daniel Day-Lewis</td>
		<td>There Will Be Blood</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
		<td>Actress In A Leading Role</td>
		<td>Marion Cotillard</td>
		<td>La Vie en Rose</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
		<td>Actor In A Supporting Role</td>
		<td>Javier Bardem</td>
		<td>No Country For Old Men</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
		<td>Actress In A Supporting Role</td>
		<td>Tilda Swinton</td>
		<td>Michael Clayton</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
		<td>Directing</td>
		<td>Joel Coen and Ethan Coen</td>
		<td>No Country For Old Men</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
		<td>Writing</td>
		<td>Diablo Cody</td>
		<td>Juno</td>
	</tr>
</table>

The above table is a simple, standard table. The only detail of note is that this table is given the "zebra" class, which signals to MooTools that this table should be zebra-ized.

The JavaScript Class

/* classes */
var ZebraTables = new Class({
	//initialization
	initialize: function(table_class) {

		//add table shading
		$$('table.' + table_class + ' tr').each(function(el,i) {

			//do regular shading
			var _class = i % 2 ? 'even' : 'odd'; el.addClass(_class);

			//do mouseover
			el.addEvent('mouseenter',function() { if(!el.hasClass('highlight')) { el.addClass('mo').removeClass(_class); } });

			//do mouseout
			el.addEvent('mouseleave',function() { if(!el.hasClass('highlight')) { el.removeClass('mo').addClass(_class); } });

			//do click
			el.addEvent('click',function() {
				//click off
				if(el.hasClass('highlight'))
				{
					el.removeClass('highlight').addClass(_class);
				}
				//click on
				else
				{
					el.removeClass(_class).removeClass('mo').addClass('highlight');
				}
			});

		});
	}
});

The class accepts one parameter, which is the class given to tables that should be Zebra-ized. Upon initialization, the class cycles through each table row. During the row looping, the row is given its odd or even CSS class, and a listener is added to the row to highlight the row upon mouseover. The above JavaScript could be placed into an external JavaScript file.

The JavaScript Implementation

/* do it! */
window.addEvent('domready', function() {
	var zTables = new ZebraTables('zebra');
});

To implement ZebraTables, all you need to do is add the above code to any given page.

Do you have any suggestions for my zebra tables? Let me know!

Discussion

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