How to create a Dynamic Table (automatically updated)

Creating a Dynamic Table

Point the wizard at data that keeps changing, and let the article show today's figures without anyone editing it again.

What a dynamic table really is

A dynamic table is a data source. The wizard creates one, saves it in the Tabulizer component, and puts a short tag into the article pointing at it. Nothing of the table itself is stored in the article.

The payoff is that the table is read fresh when a visitor opens the page. Replace the spreadsheet on the server, or let the database fill up with new rows, and every article carrying that tag shows the new figures. Nobody edits an article; nobody remembers which three pages had last quarter's numbers in them.

The trade is editability. A data source tag is not content you can type into - you cannot bold a cell or fix a spelling in the article, because the cells are not there. They are produced when the page is rendered. If you want to fiddle with the result by hand, you want a static table (Tutorial 8).

Getting there

Edit the article, put the cursor where the table belongs, open CMS Content › Tabulizer, and choose New Dynamic Table on step 1. Tutorial 8 covers the toolbar button and the mode cards.

Step 2 - the source, with two differences

The source list is the same one a static table gets, with exactly two changes - and both make sense once you see them.

Change	Why
Typed Text / CSV disappears	Text you typed into a wizard cannot change by itself. There would be nothing for a dynamic table to re-read, so the option is simply not offered.
Form Entries appears	Submissions to a Tabulizer form arrive over time, which is the definition of changing data. It is only useful dynamically, so it only shows up here.

Everything else - CSV File, Excel File, Database Query, Remote HTML Table, Google Doc / Spreadsheet, JSON File / API, Google Calendar / ICS, RSS / Atom Feed, XML File - is available in both modes. Here, though, they behave the way you would hope: the file or the endpoint is read again on each page view rather than once.

Step 3 - configure the source

The fields depend on the source. A database query, for example, asks which connection to use and what to run.

Step 3 of the Tabulizer wizard, Configure Data Source, with a note about running a SQL SELECT query and using the hash underscore prefix for Joomla table names, a Database Connection choice of Joomla database or External database, and a SQL Query box containing a SELECT statement.

Field	Notes
Database Connection	Joomla database uses the site's own connection - no credentials to enter. External database opens fields for a separate server.
SQL Query	A `SELECT`. Write Joomla table names with the `#__` prefix so the query keeps working if the table prefix changes.
Empty results message	What a visitor sees when the query returns nothing. Worth filling in - the default is a bare empty table, which looks broken rather than empty.
Include header row	Whether the column names become the table's first row.

The query runs on every page view, under the permissions of the site's database user. Select only the columns you intend to publish - a SELECT * against a user table will put email addresses on a public page.

Step 4 - the ruleset

Choose an Archive and then a Ruleset, exactly as for a static table. The difference is where the choice is kept: it is stored on the data source, not in the article. Change it later on the data source and every article using that tag follows, with nothing to re-edit.

Step 5 - name it

This step has a field the static modes do not: Data Source Title.

Step 5 of the Tabulizer wizard, Confirm and Insert, showing a Data Source Title field filled in with Quarterly figures by region and help text saying this title will identify the newly created data source in the Tabulizer component, above a summary listing Mode New Dynamic Table, Data Source Database Query, Archive and Ruleset.

The help text under it says what it is for: this title will identify the newly created data source in the Tabulizer component. That is your only chance to label it conveniently at creation time, and it is worth spending five seconds on. A site accumulates data sources quickly, and they are listed by title - “Quarterly figures by region” is findable in a year's time, “Table 4” is not.

Click Insert Table.

What lands in the article

The Joomla article editor after inserting a dynamic table, showing a single tabulizer data source tag on one line followed by an include style marker and an unrelated static table below it.

One line: {tabulizer:data_source[…]}. No table, no stylesheet marker, no rows - the tag is the whole thing, and the table appears when a visitor views the page.

Preview the article to see the table. In the editor you will only ever see the tag, which is exactly what you should see: there is nothing stored there to render.

The data source you just made

Go to Components › Tabulizer › Data Sources and it is there, under the title you gave it, with its tag, its source type, its archive and ruleset, and its query or file path. Click it to edit any of that.

This is the important half of the story, and it is where the wizard's own limits show. The wizard asks for what it needs to get a table on screen. The component's data source form offers considerably more:

Available on the data source	What it gives you
Caching	A cache type and lifetime. The single most useful setting for a remote file or a heavy query - without it, every page view goes and fetches the data again.
Header row contents	Supply your own column headings instead of taking whatever the source calls them.
Column mapping and table order	Reorder, drop or remap columns without changing the query or the file.
User parameter labels	Name the values that can be passed in at render time, so they are self-describing.
Publishing preferences	Control how and where the data source may be published.

If you know in advance that you need any of these, build the data source first in Components › Tabulizer › Data Sources › New, where the full form is available, and then insert it with the Existing Dynamic Table mode - Tutorial 11. The wizard is the quick path, not the complete one.

Common questions

Can I edit the table in the article?

No, and that is the deal. The article holds a tag; the cells do not exist until the page is rendered. Edit the data, or edit the data source.

I deleted the tag by accident.

The data source is untouched - it lives in the component. Insert it again with Existing Dynamic Table.

Can the same data source appear in two articles?

Yes. Paste the same tag into as many articles as you like; each renders it independently, and the cache serves them all.

The table is slow.

Turn on the data source's cache. A remote file or a large query re-read on every page view is the usual cause.

The front end shows an empty table.

The source returned no rows. Set an Empty results message so visitors see a sentence rather than an empty frame, then check the query or the file path.

I want to change the styling later.

Edit the data source and pick a different ruleset. Every article using the tag changes at once.

Make one from live data

Open an article and choose CMS Content › Tabulizer › New Dynamic Table.

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