I have a Top Ten Score table which lists the Person, their Score, and their Country.  Any Country can show up in this Top Ten Score table since it reflects real time scores of players around the world.  

I would like to add a column to the left of the Country column into which is placed the flag icon for that specific country (uploaded to the Media Library).  Since this table is dynamic, how can the proper image be placed in the table cell next to the appropriate Country?

Thank you,

Quint

Hello Bogdan,

Thank you for the pointers.  

According to the documentation you've pointed to, all that the wpdatatables plugin requires when a column has been designated as an "image" column is the url to the image media?  How would I populate a column where I wanted to show the user's avatar?

I am trying to add the BuddyPress user's avatar to the row where his/her score is listed.  Effectively, I would like the wpdatatable to display as a game leaderboard would.

Hello Bogdan,

The input type isn’t what I’m referring to.  I am asking from a programming standpoint, how does one insert the user’s avatar into your table on the front-end?  

If one were to build a regular table using PHP and the WordPress functions, once one had an array of the user IDs, one could go get the avatar urls and include them in that table.  Your table is on the front-end and the IDs are already in the table per the MySQL query.  Since the table is already built, it’s too late to run the get_avatar_url() function against the column of user IDs.  So, that’s why I’m asking how can it be done given that your table is already built on the front-end.

Hello Bogdan,

I have seen that documentation and watched the example video for the filter but the documentation does not provide clear examples of how to implement the filters/actions.  I would just be guessing which would be correct filter and then guessing how to use it.  

Can you help?  I've been asked if I want to renew my support payment which expires in a few days but why should I do that when "support" means that I am pointed to documentation that I've already combed through?  Answering customers thoroughly helps us all because we can search through the tickets for solutions to similar problems.

Which one is the right filter?  How do I select the proper column (in this case, user_id/email address) to then use the get_avatar_url() function to insert into each row?  

Thanks,

Quint

Then modify your support policy and/or add examples/walkthroughs to your "developer" documentation.  The way it's presently written, it may just as well be a list of bullet points on a slide.  

Your customer is telling you how to make it better not only for him but for others.  This is 2018.  Customers invest in a product not only for what it does but for how it is supported.  This is especially true of plugins because they/we know that the plugin and its features are just a starting point.  But we commit to your product and we commit our time to learning it, pushing it, and trying to do things that it probably wasn't meant to do.  And we come back to the plugin creators to share what we've tried.  We learn and they learn.  My time is valuable too and you didn't have to pay for it.  I volunteered it.

When a customer is trying to engage in a dialogue about your product, don't shut them down.  If you won't build a community of customers that try to support each other (for example, tumult.com, which is fantastic) or an actual company that goes above and beyond what is expected in terms of support; such as highcharts.com (again, a fantastic product), then build out your developer documentation to the level WordPress codec does.  Their codec provides multiple examples of how the functions/filters/actions have been implemented.

If someone asks me, which they will, about my experience with wpdatatables, I would say that the company is composed of very talented people who have built a fantastic product.  The plugin is well thought out and has continually been updated since its introduction.  It has built infrastructure that allows the manipulation of the table and chart output both from the frontend and backend and has attempted to communicate how to execute that manipulation through video and documentation.  However, the developer documentation does not provide sufficient examples which show off the capability of the tools provided to developers.  In fact, it is written for senior developers, not intermediate and certainly not for beginner developers.  Furthermore, when "support" has been asked to provide any examples specific to the list of hooks in the developer documentation, it is deemed "out-of-scope" and relegated to a custom coding job. 

Rating:

Plugin: wpdatatables - A+++

Developer Documentation (hooks): Missing implementation/use-case examples - (better hire a senior developer should your project require output beyond the norm)