When you have a a large list of items (e.g. search results or news articles), you can display them grouped in pages and present navigational elements to move from one page to another. This plugin creates these navigational elements.
Include jQuery, the pagination plugin script and the pagination.css file in your HTML page. In your HTML body create a container tag pair that will hold the link elements. Give it an id or class attribute (e.g. "News-Pagination"). This attribute can used as the selector for jQuery.
Next, write a JavaScript function that has two parameters: page_index and paging_container. This is the callback function where you react to clicks on the pagination links. It should select a slice from your content, depending on the page id.:
function handlePaginationClick(new_page_index, pagination_container) {
// This selects 20 elements from a content array
for(var i=new_page_id;i<;i++) {
$('#MyContentArea').append(content[i]);
}
return false;
}
The code in this callback function requires knowledge of the jQuery DOM manipulation functions. This is where you write your display routines.
In the initialisation function of your page, when you know how many items you want to display overall, create the pagination element like this::
// First Parameter: number of items
// Second Parameter: options object
$("#News-Pagination").pagination(122, {
items_per_page:20,
callback:handlePaginationClick
});
This will create the navigation links inside the container. You will see the numbers 1-7, the first number is highlighted. When you click on another number, the highlighting changes and your callback function "handlePaginationClick" is called.
The plugin is highly configurable through the option parameter and all elements can be styled separately.
The following list describes what options you have for the option object:
- callback
- A callback function that is called when a user clicks on a pagination link. The
function receives two parameters: the new page index and the pagination
container (a DOM element). If the callback returns false, the event
propagation is stopped. Default value:
function(){return false;}. This callback function is essential for the functionality of the pagination! It should contain code that updates your content. For a fast user experience you should NOT load content via AJAX in this function. Instead, pre-load some content pages and switch between them with this function. - current_page
- The page that is selected when the pagination is initialized. Default: 0
- items_per_page
- The number of items per page. The maximum number of pages is calculated by dividing the number of items by items_per_page (rounded up, minimum 1). Please note: This value is only for calculating the number of pages. The actual selection of the items correlating to the current page and number of items must be done by your code in your callback function! Default: 10
- link_to
- Link target of the pagination links. Normally the page selection is
triggered through an onclick event. If the link contains the string
__id__, it will be replaced with the page number. Default:# - num_display_entries
- Maximum number of pagination links that are visible. Set to 0 to display a simple "Previous/Next"-Navigation. Set to an odd number for maximum symmetry and aesthetic pleasure. Default: 11
- next_text
- Text for the "Next"-link that increases the current page number by 1.
Leave blank to hide the link. Default:
Next - next_show_always
- If this is set to false, the "Next"-link is only shown when the page number can be increased. Default: true
- prev_text
- Text for the "Previous"-link that decreases the current page number by 1.
Leave blank to hide the link. Default:
Previous - prev_show_always
- If this is set to false, the "Previous"-link is only shown when the page number can be decreased. Default: true
- num_edge_entries
- If this number is set to 1, links to the first and the last page are always shown, independent of the current position and the visibility constraints set by num_display_entries. You can set it to bigger numbers to show more links. Default: 0
- ellipse_text
- When there is a gap between the numbers created by num_edge_entries and the
displayed number interval, this text will be inserted into the gap (inside a
span tag). Can be left blank to avoid the additional tag. Default:
... - load_first_page
- If true (default) then the callback is executed when the plugin is initialized. If you load your content with AJAX and already show content whey you initialize the pagination, you should set this to false.
There may be use cases where you want to change the pagination from your own JavaScript code. For example in a wizard or a questionnaire you skip pages if a certain option is not selected. Or clicking on images in an image gallery should trigger the "next page" event. For these use cases you use jQuery custom events like this::
// Jump to the 5th page
$("#News-Pagination").trigger('setPage', [4]);
// Go to the next page
$("#News-Pagination").trigger('nextPage');
// Go to the previous page
$("#News-Pagination").trigger('prevPage');
The event handlers check if the new page number is inside the boundaries of the number of pages and ignore the event if it is outside.
Inital release
Fixed a bug when the click on a pagination item was propagated to the browser.
Fixed bug with jQuery.noConflict(). Wrote better demo files. Tested with jQuery 1.3.1
- Complete, more object-oriented rewrite
- Now requires jQuery 1.4. Tested with jQuery 1.4.2
- Support for several synchronized pagination containers
Bugfix. Renderer used restricted keyword "default"
- Bugfix for GitHub Issue #1, found by Cody Lindley
- Small text corrections
- Start end end points now have classes.
Pagination can now be controlled from you own JavaScript code by triggering
custom events. See demo/demo_events.htm for an example.
alexhayes added an option to avoid calling the callback when the plugin is initialized.
- Optional links for jumping a fixed number of pages.
- Trigger events when a page is selected.
- Implement paginaton as a jQuery UI widget.
- More renderers for rendering the Pagination elements differently.
- Documentation and examples how you implement your own renderers.
- Write unit tests and use QUnit instead of JSUnit.
I'll implement these features as I see fit and when my time allows it. If you'd like to see any of those features now, feel free to contact me and we can discuss a reasonable fee.
I'd be glad if you could send me a notice where you use jQuery Pagination. Knowing common use cases will help me to improve the plugin in the future.
This plugin is licensed under the GPL v2. You can find the full license text here: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.txt If you need another license, write me an email and tell me what the library will be used for. I usually grant other open source licenses on an individual basis.
Source code: http://github.com/gbirke/jquery_pagination
You can reach me at: