elm-table

Features

This page is the Elm counterpart of TanStack Table's Features Guide. In TanStack v9 a table declares the capabilities it uses with a tableFeatures({...}) call, and each feature it registers adds its own state, options, and APIs to the table instance. That page explains what to register and why.

There is nothing to register here. Every feature in this package is a set of plain functions on Table.Config, Table.State, and the row model, and they are all available the moment you import Table.

Why There Is No features Option

TanStack's features option exists to keep bundles small. A plugin that is not registered is not imported, so its code is not shipped, and its APIs do not appear in the TypeScript types either.

Elm gets the same result from the compiler. elm make --optimize drops every function your program never calls, so an unused feature costs nothing at runtime and nothing in the build. That removes the registration step, and with it the type errors TanStack raises when a row model is registered without its feature.

One consequence is worth knowing. Table.rows runs all six pipeline stages, so it references all six, and the compiler keeps them. Calling only the stages you want keeps the rest out of the build:

sortedOnly : Table.State -> Table.RowModel Person
sortedOnly state =
    Table.coreRowModelFromList config state people
        |> Table.sortedRowModel config state

See Row Models for the stages and what each one does.

Features, Row Models, and Functions Are Separate

TanStack draws a line between three things: a feature (state and APIs), a row model (the client-side work), and a function registry (named sort, filter, and aggregation implementations). The same line exists here, drawn differently.

  • State and transitions. Every feature owns one slice of Table.State and a set of ... -> State -> State transitions. They work whether or not the matching pipeline stage runs.
  • Pipeline stages. The six stages, in order, are core, filtered, grouped, sorted, expanded, paginated. Each is a function from a RowModel to a RowModel. A manual* flag on the Config skips its stage and passes the rows through untouched, which is how you hand the work to a server. See Client-Side vs Server-Side.
  • Functions. A SortFn, FilterFn, or AggregationFn is a value you pass to a column builder, not a string looked up in a registry. There is no registry to include or tree-shake, and no name that can be spelled wrong.

Nothing is opt-in. Sorting works because the sorted stage is always part of the pipeline, not because you registered rowSortingFeature:

config : Table.Config Person
config =
    Table.config
        [ Table.column "firstName" (.firstName >> Value.String)
            |> Table.withHeader "First name"
        , Table.column "department" (.department >> Value.String)
            |> Table.withHeader "Department"
        , Table.column "salary" (.salary >> Value.Number)
            |> Table.withHeader "Salary"
        ]

rowModel : Table.State -> Table.RowModel Person
rowModel state =
    Table.rowsFromList config state people

The Feature List

These are TanStack's stock features and where each one lives here.

TanStack feature Guide What it is
cellSelectionFeature Cell Selection Rectangular cell ranges, keyboard navigation, and the focused cell.
cellSpanningFeature Cell Spanning Cells that span rows or columns.
columnFacetingFeature Faceting Unique values, counts, and min/max ranges for building filter controls.
columnFilteringFeature Column Filtering Per-column filters and the filtered stage.
columnGroupingFeature Grouping Group rows by one or more column values.
columnOrderingFeature Column Ordering The order columns are drawn in.
columnPinningFeature Column Pinning Columns held to the left or right edge.
columnResizingFeature Column Resizing Turning a drag into a new column width.
columnSizingFeature Column Sizing Column widths, minimums, maximums, and offsets.
columnVisibilityFeature Column Visibility Showing and hiding columns.
globalFilteringFeature Global Filtering One filter value applied across columns.
rowAggregationFeature Aggregation The values a group row reports for its children.
rowExpandingFeature Expanding Which rows show their sub-rows.
rowPaginationFeature Pagination Page index, page size, and the paginated stage.
rowPinningFeature Row Pinning Rows held at the top or bottom.
rowSelectionFeature Row Selection Selected row ids, including sub-row rules.
rowSortingFeature Sorting Sort state, multi-sorting, and the sorted stage.

Two more pages match TanStack's, and neither is a feature there either. Fuzzy Filtering is a recipe built from filtering and sorting. Virtualization is a rendering technique that lives outside the package.

TanStack's stockFeatures bundle, which registers all of the above at once, has no counterpart: everything above is already available.

What TanStack Has That This Package Does Not

Five parts of TanStack Table have no Elm counterpart. Each one exists because of something that is not true here.

  • Devtools. TanStack's devtools panel inspects a live table instance. There is no instance to inspect. Config, State, and RowModel are ordinary values, so you can print one, store it, or compare two.
  • flexRender. In TanStack a cell or header option can be a string, a value, or a component, and flexRender decides how to render whichever one it was given. In Elm you write the Html yourself from the cell value, so there is nothing to dispatch on. See Cells.
  • Custom features and plugins. A TanStack plugin attaches new state and new methods to the table instance. With no instance, there is nothing to attach to. A behaviour this package does not have is a function you write over the RowModel it returns.
  • Table and column meta. meta is a place to hang your own typed data on a table or a column so a render function can read it back off the instance. Keep that data in your own model and read it there; column ids are strings you can key a Dict by.
  • Type helpers. createColumnHelper, createTableHook, and the registry types exist to recover type information TypeScript cannot infer on its own. Elm infers the row type from your accessors, so Table.column needs no helper and no type parameters beyond row. See Column Definitions.

Where to Go Next

Config and State covers the two values every feature reads. Table State covers owning the State in your model. Each feature guide above follows the same shape: the state slice, the config and column options, the transitions, and the queries used while rendering.