Angular Data GridColumn Menu

The column menu is launched from the grid header, and displays a list of menu items, along with the ability to select columns and display filters.

The following example shows the column menu:

• The Athlete column does not have filtering enabled, and only shows the main menu.
• The Age column has filtering enabled, and shows an additional filter icon. Open and apply a filter to see the behaviour.
• The Country column has filtering enabled with the floating filter. Open and apply a filter to see the behaviour.
• Right-clicking on the column headers will also display the column menu.
• Right-clicking in the empty space to the right of the column headers will display the column menu with options to choose/reset the columns.

Customising the Column Menu

How the column menu is launched from the header can be configured via the following column definition properties.

The column menu button can be hidden until moused over by the grid option suppressMenuHide.

The following example demonstrates different ways of customising the column menu:

• The Athlete column has a filter and the menu button suppressed, but still available via right-click.
• The Age column has a floating filter and the menu suppressed, but still available via right-click.
• The Country column has a filter and the header filter button suppressed.
• The Year column has a floating filter and the header filter button suppressed.
• The Sport column has no filter and the menu suppressed on right-click.
• The Gold column has no filter and the menu button suppressed, but still available via right-click
• The Silver column has a filter (with the header filter button suppressed), and the menu button suppressed but still available via right-click.
• The Bronze column has a floating filter and the menu button suppressed, but still available via right-click.
• The Total column has the menu button, header filter button and right-click menu suppressed.

Customising the Menu Items

The main menu list, by default, will show a set of items. You can adjust which of these items get displayed, or you can start from scratch and provide your own items. There are two ways to customise the menu items:

1. Set colDef.mainMenuItems. This can either be a list of menu items, or a callback which is passed the list of default menu items.
2. Set the grid option getMainMenuItems(). This callback will be passed the list of default menu items as well as the column.

Note that colDef.mainMenuItems will take priority over getMainMenuItems().

The menu item list should be a list with each item either a) a string or b) a MenuItemDef description. Use 'string' to pick from built-in menu items (listed below) and use MenuItemDef descriptions for your own menu items.

Built-In Menu Items

The following is a list of all the default built-in menu items with the rules about when they are shown.

• sortAscending: Sort the column in ascending order. Not shown when columnMenu = 'legacy' or the column is already sorted in ascending order.
• sortDescending: Sort the column in descending order. Not shown when columnMenu = 'legacy' or the column is already sorted in descending order.
• sortUnSort: Clear the sort on the column. Not shown when columnMenu = 'legacy' or the column is not sorted.
• columnFilter: Show the column filter. Not shown when columnMenu = 'legacy', a filter is not enabled, or the header filter button or floating filter button are displayed.
• columnChooser: Show the column chooser. Not shown when columnMenu = 'legacy'.
• pinSubMenu: Sub-menu for pinning. Always shown.
• pinSubMenu: Sub-menu for pinning. Always shown.
• valueAggSubMenu: Sub-menu for value aggregation. Always shown.
• autoSizeThis: Auto-size the current column. Always shown.
• autoSizeAll: Auto-size all columns. Always shown.
• rowGroup: Group by this column. Only shown if column is not grouped. Note this will appear once there is row grouping.
• rowUnGroup: Un-group by this column. Only shown if column is grouped. Note this will appear once there is row grouping.
• resetColumns: Reset column details. Always shown.
• expandAll: Expand all groups. Only shown if grouping by at least one column.
• contractAll: Collapse all groups. Only shown if grouping by at least one column.

The defaultItems list will change on different calls, depending on, for example, which columns are currently used for grouping.

If you do not override the list of menu items, then the items displayed will be based on the rules above.

Menu Item Separators

Menu items can be grouped together by adding separators between groups. Separators are defined by the string value 'separator'. For example, you could add menu item separators as follows:

menuItems.push('separator')

Custom Menu Item Components

In addition to the provided menu items, it is also possible to create custom menu item components.

For more details, refer to the section: Custom Menu Item Components.

Example: Customising the Menu Items

The following example demonstrates the colDef.mainMenuItems property:

• The Athlete column shows the list of built-in items.
• The Age column appends custom items to the list of built-in items.
• The Country column provides custom items and adds one built-in default item.
• The Year column trims down the default items by removing values.

Customising the Column Chooser

The behaviour and appearance of the Columns Menu tab can be customised by supplying ColumnChooserParams to the column definition: colDef.columnChooserParams. Note that all of the properties are initially set to false.

The following example demonstrates all of the above column chooser properties except columnLayout which will be covered later on. Note the following:

• Launch the column chooser by selecing Choose Columns from any of the column menus.
• The column chooser when launched from any column has been configured to ignore column moves in the grid by setting suppressSyncLayoutWithGrid=true on the default column definition.
• The Name column chooser doesn't show the top filter section as suppressColumnFilter, suppressColumnSelectAll and suppressColumnExpandAll are all set to true.
• The Age column chooser shows the group columns in a collapsed state as contractColumnSelection is set to true.

Custom Column Layout

By default the order of columns in the column chooser is derived from the columnDefs supplied in the grid options, and is kept in sync with the grid when columns are moved.

However, a custom column layout can be provided using the columnLayout property in the colDef.columnChooserParams.

<ag-grid-angular
    [columnDefs]="columnDefs"
    /* other grid options ... */ />

// original column definitions supplied to the grid
this.columnDefs = [
    {
        columnChooserParams: {
            columnLayout: [{
                headerName: 'Group 1', // group doesn't appear in grid
                children: [
                    { field: 'c' }, // custom column order with column "b" omitted
                    { field: 'a' }
                ]
            }]
        }
    },
    { field: 'b' },
    { field: 'c' }
];

The following example demonstrates providing custom column layouts in the column chooser via the columnLayout property. Note the following:

• Open the column chooser for the Name column and note it shows the custom column order as specified in its columnLayout.
• Open the column chooser for the Age column and note it shows the actual column order shown in the grid.
• Reorder columns in the grid - drag the Age column and drop it on the left of the Name column.
• Open the column chooser for the Age column and note that the column layout now shows the Age column before the Name column.
• Open the column chooser for the Name column and note that the column layout still shows the Name column followed by the Age column (custom column layout is not synchronized with the grid column order).

Column Menu API / Events

The gridApi has the following methods that can be used to interact with the column menu:

The following column menu event is emitted by the grid:

The following example demonstrates the column menu API and events (by clicking the buttons outside the grid):

Menu Popup

The column menu is displayed inside a popup, which can be further configured.

Repositioning the Popup

If not happy with the position of the popup, you can override its position using the postProcessPopup(params) callback. This gives you the popup HTML element so you can change its position should you wish to.

The following example demonstrates using postProcessPopup() to move the Age column menu down by 25 pixels.

Popup Parent

Under most scenarios, the menu will fit inside the grid. However if the grid is small and / or the menu is very large, then the menu will not fit inside the grid and it will be clipped. This will lead to a bad user experience.

To fix this, you should set the Popup Parent property.

Legacy Tabbed Column Menu

The menu can also be displayed in the legacy tabbed format with three panels by setting the grid option columnMenu = 'legacy'. If you want to change the order in which panels are shown, or hide them, you can specify the property menuTabs in the colDef.

The property menuTabs is an array of strings. The valid values are: 'filterMenuTab', 'generalMenuTab' and 'columnsMenuTab'.

• generalMenuTab: Include to show the main panel.
• filterMenuTab: Include to show the filter panel.
• columnsMenuTab: Include to show the column chooser panel.

The order of the menu tabs shown in the menu will match the order you specify in this array.

If you don't specify a menuTabs for a colDef the default is: ['generalMenuTab', 'filterMenuTab', 'columnsMenuTab']

The following example demonstrates the default tabbed menu:

• The Athlete column shows the default tabs.
• The Age column changes the order of the tabs to ['filterMenuTab', 'generalMenuTab', 'columnsMenuTab']
• The Country column changes the order of the tabs to ['filterMenuTab', 'columnsMenuTab']. Note that the 'generalMenuTab' is suppressed.
• The Year column changes the tabs to ['generalMenuTab']. Note that the 'filterMenuTab' and 'columnsMenuTab' are suppressed.
• The Sport column hides the menu by suppressing all the menuTabs that can be shown: [].