Hi, Charles.

I can see what you mean.

You will not be able to pass images formatted like this directly from the Sheet to our tables.

But we can help you do this.

You will need to change how you format the source data for images.

“Image” link columns are used to render images in the table, either in full size, or as a link from a thumbnail to a full size image.

• Rendering rules: If the content of the cells contains a combination of “two sticks” – || – everything to the left of this combination is used as a link to the thumbnail, 
• and everything to the right as a link to the full image size .

For example:

http://domain.com/thumb.png||http://domain.com/fullsize.png

• Sorting rules: alphabetical.
• Applicable filter types: text.
• Editor input type: One-line edit, Attachment
• Issues to note:
  • Sometimes some issues may appear when you’re sorting on image columns, since it’s done alphabetically, and alphabetic sorting of HTML typically doesn’t make sense.
  • Please note that the plugin does not create thumbnails (at least for the moment), so you will need to take care of this yourself.
  • If you would like to open full-size images in lightbox, you can use a plugin for that, e.g. WP Lightbox 2  (please note that this is available for tables that aren’t editable)

Check more details about how to use Image column in our plugin here  : https://wpdatatables.com/documentation/column-features/image-columns/

--

Let me know if you have any questions. Thank you.

Hi, Charles.

No problem, i am happy to help.

- In regards to these new questions , yes, i can see what the issue is.

Basically, you have imported this Google Sheet data, but when you do this method to Create a Table,

what this does is -  it makes a new Table in your Database,

but it does not have any synchronization/link with the source Google Sheet.

Just in the moment of the "import", this data gets passed, then there is no link between the Sheet and this Table, if that makes sense.

Then later on, if you need to update it with changed data from the Sheet - you have to go to the "Select how to use source file data", choose one of these options,

depending on if you still keep the same Column structure in the Sheet and just wish to add new rows, 

or if you change the column structure, then you need to replace the entire data source,

then when you paste the Google Sheet link in the source URL,

hit "Save Changes", the existing Manual Table is going to update your data from the source Sheet again.

-

2. But, if you need the source Google Sheet to stay 'linked'/synchronized with any editing you do ,

and to output that with our dataTable,  then choose this other method;

Create a data table linked to an existing data source.

Here is the documentation that shows this for linking Google Sheets.

This is going to automatically output any changes you do on the source Sheet,

within 15 minutes.

Just to note, there will be Google Cache involved.

If you wish to avoid the Google Cache, and also if you wish to have a quicker /custom refresh interval,

we have this new Caching Feature, which can be great for that use-case,

and if you add "auto update cache" option, you can make Custom Cron Jobs that will allow you to set time interval for refreshing.

-

Please check more about this Cache and Auto-Update Cache on this Documentation.

I also made a short Video here,  just to demonstrate how to make a table like this and how to enable our own cache feature.

Important to note,  this will work if your tables do not go over approximately 5 to 6 thousand rows;

if your data set for a single Table goes above that number of rows,

then you will have to switch to the initial method / Import the Data to make a new Manual Table,

because this method uses server-side processing to lessen the load of the hosting server.

Let me know if all this makes sense and if you have any questions.

Hi, Charles.

Sorry for the delay.

We can do some troubleshooting for you - to see why the Auto Update Cache won't work as expected.

Please provide me a temporary WP-admin (administrator) user for your site where this happens, so we could log in and take a look ‘from the inside’ as that’s the most efficient way to see and resolve the issue. 

We do not interfere with any data or anything else except for the plugin (in case that’s a production version of the site), and of course, we do not provide login data to third parties. 

You can write credentials here just check PRIVATE Reply so nobody can see them except us.

And if you can share the "Editing" access for any example Spreadsheet, with my Email [email protected].

and let me know of the Table ID where it's connected;

so i can perhaps add a new row to the source Sheet, or slightly edit any cell , to test if the update works;  then i will revert any editing i did.

i will also inspect the Cron configuration, etc.

Thank you.

Hi, Charles.

Our Support is not able to manage your server settings, I'm afraid.

If you need help with any server settings or adding a cron job to the server directly,

you would have to contact your hosting support.

We can only help with issues that come from our own plugin,

and as you see, sometimes we go beyond that, to troubleshoot a cron with WP Crontrol;

but accessing your server and adding cron there would be too much outside of the scope what our Support can cover.

-

If you wish to try alternate approach outside of WP Crontrol, but rather to try a configuration with your server cron scheduler.;

If you want to run a cron (do auto update cache) every 15 minutes, copy the command below and paste it into the cron file.

*/15 * * * * http://localhost/current/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=wdtable_update_cache&wdtable_cache_verify=87ba468fd11194b7737460037b3e84738e5a3be98be0

If that doesn't work, please try these as well:

*/15 * * * * wget -q -O – "http://localhost/current/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=wdtable_update_cache&wdtable_cache_verify=87ba468fd11194b7737460037b3e84738e5a3be98be0"

*/15 * * * * /usr/local/bin/php ~/public_html/wp-cron.php –action='wdtable_update_cache' –wdtable_cache_verify='87ba468fd11194b7737460037b3e84738e5a3be98be0'

GET 'http://localhost/current/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=wdtable_update_cache&wdtable_cache_verify=87ba468fd11194b7737460037b3e84738e5a3be98be0' > /dev/null

Depending on the server, there are different configurations for it, which you can contact your hosting provider about.

If you need a different schedule time, you can see a more in–depth tutorial on how to set up cron jobs on this link.

-

We hope this helps.

Hello Charles.

We are not able to assist you with cron jobs simply because different hosting providers have different commands. You can only get the correct command from their support, or by adding one at a time and checking to see if it works correctly or not.

From GoDaddy's website, I can see that this is their cron command:

/usr/local/bin/php -q /home/[user name]/[path to the file]

So, on your end you would need to define the path to your username and then add the URL from the code in wpDataTables.

Similar to what Milos added:

http://localhost/current/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=wdtable_update_cache&wdtable_cache_verify=87ba468fd11194b7737460037b3e84738e5a3be98be0

So, with the "localhost" installation, it'd look like this:

/usr/local/bin/php -q /home/milos/http://localhost/current/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=wdtable_update_cache&wdtable_cache_verify=87ba468fd11194b7737460037b3e84738e5a3be98be0

Let me know if that helps.