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Designing Complex Responsive Tables In WordPress

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THE PROBLEM WITH HTML TABLES!

A website hardly gains traffic unless it’s responsive. Deploying the website is one step, but unless the site is interactive and dynamic, it is hard for the site to attract a relevant audience.

A responsive website is designed pixel-wise, and it adjusts its layout according to the device it is viewed on. An HTML table, on the other hand, is restricted by its size constraints. Overflowing past the small screens leads to bad user experience. The relation between different components of the website and the table (in terms of content scrunching) creates issues for a regular developer. Thus, the tables should be embedded into a web site only when necessary, and such tabular data should be presented using the WordPress customization service. This helps in reducing instances where a person might have to waste his time zooming and scrolling the table content solely because it is being viewed on a device it wasn’t designed on.

TABLES IN WORDPRESS

WordPress handles each table differently. The handling mechanism is based on the website theme opted by the web developer. We already know that WordPress makes use of cascading style sheets rules to develop tabular content. However, different themes render different types of tables. Most of the themes offered by WordPress customization service are responsive and flexible. From feature lists to pricing tables to catalogs, an individual can conveniently create a WordPress table by using the available tools.

 

RESPONSIVE TABLE APPROACHES

A.  USING THE PLUGINS

Creating responsive tables for mobile devices is best accomplished using WordPress plugins. Plugins are excellent ways of extending functionality to a WordPress website. While a plugin does not affect tables that are already a part of the webpage, it does assist you in building tables from scratch. The help offered by these easy-to-use plugins available in the WordPress directory eliminates the need to hire a WordPress developer if an individual has beginner’s level web development knowledge. The most usual way of implementing tables using plugins is to create separate tables and then insert them to the main website with the help of shortcodes.

SOME POPULAR PLUGINS THAT AID CREATION OF RESPONSIVE WORDPRESS TABLES:

1. EASY TABLE-

Easy table plugin accepts data input as comma-separated value files and converts it into tables. This plugin provides several formatting options and is widely used to create responsive tables as a part of developing responsive websites.

  1. Magic Liquidizer Responsive Table – This plugin functions on a different approach. Instead of building tables, it works with the already existing HTML tables, which happen to be non- responsive . Once you activate this plugin upon installation, it lets you choose a breakpoint. The HTML tables change formats according to device size and resolution concerning that breakpoint
  2. DATA TABLES GENERATOR- Data Tables generator uses PHP codes in WordPress themes to create a table that is responsive by default. One can choose any one of the three responsive modes offered by this plugin. These modes are:
  3. The standard
  4. Horizontal Scroll
  5. Automatic column hiding.

An added advantage of this plugin is that its operations are similar to those offered by Excel. The data tables generator provides in-built functions to perform calculations and analysis.

  1. Automatic responsive tables-

As suggested by the name of the plugin, the plugin requires you to perform a minimal number of actions. Once configured correctly, it automatically makes your tables responsive.

These are a few of the popularly downloaded WordPress plugins. The directory is, however, not limited to the ones described above. WordPress not only offers you hundreds of more plugins, but WordPress customization service allows you to transform elements and themes as per the user’s requirement.

 

B.  MANUAL METHOD

The most basic and easy way to render a responsive table is to do it manually. The manual method requires CSS and Javascript knowledge, in addition to HyperText Markup Language. Therefore, it is suggested to hire a WordPress developerif you are not familiar with any of these concepts.

The idea behind this method is to insert a CSS code along with the table code. Whenever the display shrinks below a certain width (indicative of the change in viewing device), this code is triggered to rearrange the tabular data so that it fits the screen.

CONCLUSION

Different development situations demand different approaches. If in case you are familiar with the whereabouts of a website design that contains elements like tables and charts, you may choose the manual method since it allows greater customization and also offers ease and comfort of development. ON the other hand, rendering complex tables that suit devices of all kinds might require you to hire a WordPress developer who is skilled at working with WordPress plugins. The person will not only use the available functionalities in an optimum manner but is also good at a decision making that involves selecting a particular plugin from an extensive pool of availability.

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