What's New in JCTables 1.21.1 to 1.22.0

This page covers everything added or changed since JCTables 1.21.0: the security release 1.21.1, the plugin release 1.21.2, and 1.22.0, which is mostly about how tables look and what visitors can personalise. If your plugins were set up before 1.21.0, read How plugins work now first.

Quick overview

How plugins work now (1.21.x)

1.21.0, 1.21.1 and 1.21.2

Versions 1.21.0 to 1.21.2 rebuilt the way front-end plugins talk to the server, to close security vulnerabilities (CVE-2026-76570; credit to Valentin Lobstein, Chocapikk). The rule behind every change is the same:

Most sites need no changes. The table below lists what behaves differently, so you can check your plugins.

General

Per plugin

The right-click header menu

Several 1.22.0 features are used from the menu that opens when a visitor right-clicks a column header. Which items appear depends on your settings:

Themes

New in 1.22.0

A theme sets the whole look of a JCTable. It has two parts:

Each choice is shown with a preview. Click the magnifier on a preview to see it full size (in the Themes list, click the preview itself). Click anywhere or press Esc to close it.

Managing themes

Go to Components → JCTables → Themes.

• Create as many themes as you need, each combining one table theme and one layout theme.
• Click the star to make a theme the default. There is always exactly one default, and it can't be deleted.
• Publish or unpublish themes with the tick in the Published column, the toolbar buttons, or Published on the theme's edit page. Only published themes are offered to visitors in Select Theme. A JCTable that uses an unpublished theme still shows it.
• JCTables ships with a theme called Default (the JCTables table and layout themes), which looks the same as earlier versions.
• Theme files for Tabulator 4.9 or EasyUI that you copy into media/com_jctables/css are offered as choices too.

Choosing a theme for a JCTable

In the JCTable, go to Setup Options → Themes and pick either the default theme or a specific one.

Notes

• When a page shows more than one JCTable, the first JCTable's theme is used for all of them.
• Toolbar button text follows the layout theme, so it stays readable on dark themes.
• The JCTables look (toolbar fonts, the cyan clicked row, green edit borders and so on) is now part of the JCTables theme. Other themes keep their own look.

No Access Message

New in 1.22.0 · Each table, under No Data Message · Default: blank

Each table has its own Access level, so a JCTable can be public while some of its tables are for registered users only. A visitor who isn't allowed to see a table used to get an empty space, with no idea why. Now you can say why.

• HTML can be used, e.g. a link to your login page: Please <a href="/login">log in</a> to see the users.
• Only the message reaches the visitor's browser: none of the table's query, columns, data or plugins.
• The Users sample shows how it works: its master table is for registered users, so guests see "Please log in to see the users."

Popup themes

New in 1.22.0 · Plugin Config: popup_class

A plugin that opens a popup can give the popup a layout theme of its own, whatever theme the page uses. Name the theme in popup_class in the plugin's Config:

{
    "popup_class": "slate"
}

Theme names: black, bootstrap, bootstrap5, classic, default (Standard), gray, indigo, jctables, material, metro, navyblue, slate, spreadsheet, and any layout theme you add to media/com_jctables/css/easyui. Upper or lower case doesn't matter.

Notes

• Only the popup part of the theme is loaded (about 2.5 KB to download), and only the first time such a popup opens. Pages whose plugins don't name a theme load nothing extra.
• The popup gets the class jct-popup-<theme>, e.g. jct-popup-slate, which Custom CSS can use.
• A page shown in the popup from a URL (an iframe) keeps its own styles.
• The drop-down lists of combo boxes and date boxes in the popup keep the page's theme: EasyUI shows them outside the popup.

Remember Column Layout

New in 1.22.0 · SQL Content Settings · Default: Yes

Visitors can arrange the columns to suit themselves, and their browser remembers it.

Your column formatter still sets everything else. The checkbox and row button columns stay in place.

Reset columns

Right-click a header → Reset columns puts the table back to how you set it up. Before resetting, it asks for confirmation and lists exactly what will be cleared, with the columns concerned:

• column widths
• column order
• renamed columns
• columns shown or hidden with Choose Columns
• the layout saved by Tabulator persistence, if you use it

Reset columns does not change a theme the visitor has chosen.

Rename Column

New in 1.22.0 · Requires Remember Column Layout

Let visitors give a column their own title. Add editableTitle: true to the column in the column formatter:

{title: "Customer", field: "customer_name", editableTitle: true}

Visitors then right-click the header → Rename column:

The new title is remembered with the column layout and cleared by Reset columns.

Allow Theme Selection

New in 1.22.0 · SQL Content Settings, below Remember Column Layout · Default: No

Lets visitors pick their own theme with right-click a header → Select Theme, which lists your published themes.

• The JCTable's own theme is always listed, even when unpublished, so visitors can go back to it.
• If a theme a visitor chose is unpublished later, they see the JCTable's own theme again.
• The chosen theme is applied to the whole page at once.
• It is remembered (in a cookie), so later visits open with it.
• Choosing the JCTable's own theme again forgets the choice.
• Reset columns leaves the chosen theme alone.

Allow Column Chooser

New in 1.22.0 · SQL Content Settings, below Allow Theme Selection · Default: No

Lets visitors show and hide columns with right-click a header → Choose Columns.

• The menu stays open, so several columns can be ticked or unticked in one go.
• The last visible column can't be hidden.
• The choice is remembered with the column layout and cleared by Reset columns.

Deciding which columns are offered

Mark columns with choosable: true in the column formatter:

{title: "Phone",   field: "phone",   choosable: true},
{title: "Notes",   field: "notes",   choosable: true, visible: false},
{title: "Order #", field: "id"}

A column hidden by a content plugin override stays hidden, and isn't offered.

Remember Panel Layout

New in 1.22.0 · Setup Options, below Split Height Anchor · Default: Yes

Each visitor's browser remembers how they leave the panels around the table:

Only what the visitor actually changes is remembered. Everything else keeps your settings.

Node Icons and the Navigation Treeview

New in 1.22.0 · Navigation Treeview, below Node Filter Placeholder

Use your own icons in the Navigation Treeview, one per tree level, separated by commas, top level first:

/images/region.png, /images/branch.png, /images/shop.png

• Paths are from the site root, or a full URL.
• A blank entry (e.g. /images/region.png, , /images/shop.png) keeps the usual icon for that level.

The Navigation Treeview in 1.22.0

The treeview now uses EasyUI's own tree instead of Fancytree. It takes on the layout theme's colours and changes with Select Theme. Everything works as before:

• double-click a node to filter
• ignored nodes and refreshing the tables
• Load Option and Start Expanded
• the ##treenode## placeholders

Node titles can still contain HTML, so your tree SQL can format them. The open and close animation has been removed, so the tree responds instantly.

Params editor (JSON)

New in 1.22.0 · Params column in the JCTables list

The link in the Params column opens all the table and plugin settings of that JCTable as JSON, in an editor with line numbers, syntax colouring and checking as you type.

JCTable Preview

New in 1.22.0 · Preview link in the JCTables list, next to Params · Preview button on the JCTable edit page

Click Preview to see a JCTable exactly as the site shows it, in a dialog as big as the window. You don't need a menu item or an article for it.

Ctrl+click (or middle-click) on Preview opens it straight in a new tab.

Preview links are signed and last 12 hours, so nobody else can use them to open JCTables by id. After 12 hours, click Preview again.

Plugin Name

New in 1.22.0

Give each plugin a name to tell them apart on the edit page. A plugin's heading shows its name, or failing that its plugin action, and updates as you type:

The name is not shown on the site.

Admin translations

New in 1.22.0

The admin screens are now available in French (fr-FR), Spanish (es-ES), German (de-DE), Italian (it-IT), Portuguese (pt-PT) and Dutch (nl-NL). The content plugin's help is translated too.

Inline Edit plugin

New in 1.21.2

Sends inline cell edits of the listed fields to a different table. This is useful when the grid shows a database view. It replaces the updateTable column option removed in 1.21.0.

{"tableName": "orders", "indexField": "id", "fields": ["status", "notes"]}

Data Form as a Table plugin

New in 1.21.2

As a Table plugin, Data Form opens an empty form and inserts a new record. This is handy on detail tables that have no rows yet. The table reloads after the insert.

{
  "tableName": "order_notes",
  "hidden": {"order_id": "##selectedMasterRow.id##", "user_id": "##user.id##"},
  "fields": {"description": "New note"}
}

Blank form fields get the column's database default.

Hidden values

New in 1.21.2

hidden values are saved with the record but never shown to or changed by the user. They are ideal for audit fields:

"hidden": {"updated_by": "##user.id##", "updated_at": "##date.curdatetime##"}

Config checking as you type

New in 1.21.2

Plugin Config, Tabulator Column Config and Custom Table Options are syntax coloured and checked as you type.

• An error shows its line and column and is marked in red. Show error moves the cursor to it.
• Plugin Config is checked as JSON (as JavaScript for JS Button plugins) and has a Format JSON button.
• The Tabulator fields have line numbers.
• Save and Apply warn you if any of these fields has an error.

Bulk Update improvements

New in 1.21.2

Several fields at once

Click + Add another field to add more Field / New Value pairs, up to the number of fields the plugin offers, each field once.

• The fields of one table are saved in a single update.
• The preview shows an OLD and a NEW column for each field.
• Existing Bulk Update configs work unchanged.

Textarea field type

Use "type": "textarea" for a multi-line text box, for longer values such as notes. An optional "height", in pixels, sets its height (default 100).

{"field": "notes", "label": "Notes", "type": "textarea", "height": 150}

Min Selection

New in 1.21.2 · Each plugin, next to Max Selection · Default: 0

The least number of rows that must be ticked before the plugin runs. For example, set it to 1 for Bulk Update, a Table-type Update Record, Delete or Custom plugins. 0 keeps the previous behaviour.

Also improved