Angular Data GridApplying Provided Filters

This section describes the different ways to apply the four filters provided by the grid - Text Filter, Number Filter, Date Filter and Set Filter.

Apply, Clear, Reset and Cancel Buttons

Each of the Provided Filters can optionally include Apply, Clear, Reset and Cancel buttons.

When the Apply button is used, the filter is only applied once the Apply button is pressed. This is useful if the filtering operation will take a long time because the dataset is large, or if using server-side filtering (thus preventing unnecessary calls to the server). Pressing ↵ Enter is equivalent to pressing the Apply button (except for the Set Filter).

The Clear button clears just the filter UI, whereas the Reset button clears the filter UI and removes any active filters for that column.

The Cancel button will discard any changes that have been made in the UI, restoring the state of the filter to match the applied model.

The buttons will be displayed in the order they are specified in the buttons array.

The example below demonstrates using the different buttons. It also demonstrates the relationship between the buttons and filter events. Note the following:

• The Athlete and Age columns have filters with Apply and Reset buttons, but different orders.
• The Country column has a filter with Apply and Clear buttons.
• The Year column has a filter with Apply and Cancel buttons.
• The Age and Year columns have closeOnApply set to true, so the filter popup will be closed immediately when the filter is applied or cancelled. Pressing ↵ Enter will also apply the filter and close the popup.
• In the Age column, Reset will close the filter popup due to the presence of Apply button.

Note the expected behaviour when clicking the filter popup buttons:

• Apply closes popup only when closeOnApply set to true.
• Reset closes popup only when closeOnApply set to true and Apply button is present.
• Cancel closes popup only when closeOnApply set to true.
• Clear never closes popup.

Note the following about filter events:

• onFilterOpened is called when the filter is opened.
• onFilterModified is called when the filter changes regardless of whether the Apply button is present.
• onFilterChanged is called only after a new filter is applied.
• Looking at the console, it can be noted when a filter is changed, the result of getModel() and getModelFromUi() are different. The first reflects the active filter, while the second reflects what is in the UI (and not yet applied).

Applying the UI Model

Provided Filters maintain a separate model representing what is shown in the UI, which might change without having yet been applied, for example when an Apply button is present and the user has made changes in the UI but not yet clicked Apply. Calling getModelFromUi() will always return a model representing the current UI, whereas getModel() will return the applied model that is currently being used for filtering.

If any changes are made in the UI when the Apply button is active, or via other API methods whether the Apply button is active or not, you must call filterInstance.applyModel() if you want to ensure the UI is applied.

Applying the model is then typically followed by calling gridApi.onFilterChanged() to tell the grid to re-run the filtering.

// Get a reference to the 'name' filter instance
this.gridApi.getColumnFilterInstance('name').then(filterInstance => {
    // Apply the model to ensure any changes in the UI or via API methods are recognised
    filterInstance.applyModel();

    // Tell grid to run filter operation again
    api.onFilterChanged();
});

If no call is made to filterInstance.applyModel() then the filter UI will show any changes that have been made, but they won't be reflected in the filter model and therefore won't be reflected in the filtering. This will appear as if the user never hit the Apply button (regardless of whether the Apply button is active or not).

Next Up

Continue to the next section to learn about the Filter API.