JavaScript Data GridCell Editors
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A Cell Editor Component is the UI that appears, normally inside the Cell, that takes care of the Edit operation. You can select from the Provided Cell Editors or create your own Custom Cell Editor Components.

Cell Editor Components are configured using the cellEditor property of the Column Definition.

const gridOptions = {
    columnDefs: [
        { 
            field: 'name', 
            editable: true, 
            // uses the provided Text Cell Editor (which is the default)
            cellEditor: 'agTextCellEditor' 
        },
        { 
            field: 'age', 
            editable: true, 
            // uses a custom Cell Editor
            cellEditor: CustomAgeCellEditor,
            // provides params to the Cell Editor
            cellEditorParams: {
                foo: 'bar'
            },
            // show this editor in a popup
            cellEditorPopup: true,
            // position the popup under the cell
            cellEditorPopupPosition: 'under'
        }
    ],

    // other grid options ...
}

An editor can be in a popup or in cell.

In Cell

In Cell editing means the contents of the cell will be cleared and the editor will appear inside the cell. The editor will be constrained to the boundaries of the cell, so if it is larger than the provided area it will be clipped. When editing is finished, the editor will be removed and the renderer will be placed back inside the cell again.

If you want your editor to appear in a popup (such as a dropdown list), then you can have it appear in a popup. The popup will appear over the cell, however it will not change the contents of the cell. Behind the popup the cell will remain intact until after editing is finished which will result in the cell being refreshed.

From a lifecycle and behaviour point of view, 'in cell' and 'popup' have no impact on the editor. You can create a cell editor and change this property and observe how your editor behaves in each way.

Configure Popup

Configure that an Editor is in a pop up in one of the following ways:

  1. For Custom Cell Editors, implement the isPopup() method on the Custom Cell Editor OR specify cellEditorPopup=true on the Column Definition.
  2. For Provided Cell Editors, you do not need to to anything, as isPopup is already implemented on these.

Many Editors One Column

It is also possible to use different editors for different rows in the same column. To configure this set colDef.cellEditorSelector to a function that returns alternative values for cellEditor and cellEditorParams.

The params passed to cellEditorSelector are the same as those passed to the Cell Editor Component. Typically the selector will use this to check the rows contents and choose an editor accordingly.

The result is an object with component and params to use instead of cellEditor and cellEditorParams.

This following shows the Selector always returning back an AG Rich Select Cell Editor:

cellEditorSelector: params => {
    return {
        component: 'agRichSelectCellEditor',
        params: { values: ['Male', 'Female'] }
    };
}

However a selector only makes sense when a selection is made. The following demonstrates selecting between Cell Editors:

cellEditorSelector: params => {

  if (params.data.type === 'age') {
    return {
      component: NumericCellEditor,
    }
  }

  if (params.data.type === 'gender') {
    return {
      component: 'agRichSelectCellEditor',
      params: {
        values: ['Male', 'Female']
      }
    }
  }

  if (params.data.type === 'mood') {
    return {
      component: MoodEditor,
      popup: true,
      popupPosition: 'under'
    }
  }

  return undefined
}

The return type for the selector is CellEditorSelectorResult and has the following attributes:

Here is a full example:

  • The column 'Value' holds data of different types as shown in the column 'Type' (numbers/genders/moods).
  • colDef.cellEditorSelector is a function that returns the name of the component to use to edit based on the type of data for that row
  • Edit a cell by double clicking to observe the different editors used.

Dynamic Parameters

Parameters for cell editors can be dynamic to allow different selections based on what cell is being edited. For example, you might have a 'City' column that has values based on the 'Country' column. To do this, provide a function that returns parameters for the property cellEditorParams.

cellEditorParams: params => {
    const selectedCountry = params.data.country;

    if (selectedCountry === 'Ireland') {
        return {
            values: ['Dublin', 'Cork', 'Galway']
        };
    } else {
        return {
            values: ['New York', 'Los Angeles', 'Chicago', 'Houston']
        };
    }
}

The params object provided to the function is of type ICellEditorParams, and it is expected to return the type of the parameters for the specific editor (e.g. IRichSelectCellEditorParams in the above example).

Example: Rich Cell Editor / Dynamic Parameters

Below shows an example with dynamic editor parameters. The following can be noted:

  • Column Gender uses a cell renderer for both the grid and the editor.
  • Column Country allows country selection, with cellHeight being used to make each entry 50px tall. If the currently selected city for the row doesn't match a newly selected country, the city cell is cleared.
  • Column City uses dynamic parameters to display values for the selected country, and uses formatValue to add the selected city's country as a suffix.
  • Column Address uses the large text area editor.

Datepicker Cell Editing Example

The example below illustrates:

  • 'Date' column uses a Component cell editor that allows you to pick a date using jQuery UI Datepicker.