React Data GridEdit Components

A Cell Editor Component is the UI that appears, normally inside the Cell, that takes care of the Edit operation. You can select from the Provided Cell Editors or create your own Custom Cell Editor Components.

The example below shows some Provided Editor Components and some Custom Editor Components.

Custom Components

Custom Cell Editor Components are Controlled Components, which receive a value as part of the props, and pass value updates back to the grid via the onValueChange callback. The value is not set until editing stops.

export default ({ value, onValueChange }) => {
   return (
       <input
           type="text"
           value={value || ''}
           onChange={({ target: { value }}) => onValueChange(value === '' ? null : value)}
       />
   );
}

In previous versions of the grid, custom components were declared in an imperative way. See Migrating to Use reactiveCustomComponents for details on how to migrate to the current format.

The provided props (interface CustomCellEditorProps) are:

initialValue
TValue | null | undefined
The value in the cell when editing started.
value
TValue | null | undefined
The current value for the editor.
onValueChange
Function
Callback that should be called every time the value in the editor changes.
eventKey
string | null
Key value of key that started the edit, eg 'Enter' or 'F2' - non-printable characters appear here
column
Grid column
colDef
Column definition
Row node for the cell
data
TData
Row data
rowIndex
number
Editing row index
cellStartedEdit
boolean
If doing full row edit, this is true if the cell is the one that started the edit (eg it is the cell the use double clicked on, or pressed a key on etc).
onKeyDown
Function
callback to tell grid a key was pressed - useful to pass control key events (tab, arrows etc) back to grid - however you do
stopEditing
Function
Callback to tell grid to stop editing the current cell. Call with input parameter true to prevent focus from moving to the next cell after editing stops in case the grid property enterNavigatesVerticallyAfterEdit=true
eGridCell
A reference to the DOM element representing the grid cell that your component will live inside. Useful if you want to add event listeners or classes at this level. This is the DOM element that gets browser focus when selecting cells.
parseValue
Function
Utility function to parse a value using the column's colDef.valueParser
formatValue
Function
Utility function to format a value using the column's colDef.valueFormatter
The grid api.
context
TContext
Application context as set on gridOptions.context.

The following callbacks can be passed to the useGridCellEditor hook (CustomCellEditorCallbacks interface). All the callbacks are optional. The hook only needs to be used if callbacks are provided.

isCancelBeforeStart
Function
Optional: Gets called once after initialised. If you return true, the editor will not be used and the grid will continue editing. Use this to make a decision on editing inside the init() function, eg maybe you want to only start editing if the user hits a numeric key, but not a letter, if the editor is for numbers.
isCancelAfterEnd
Function
Optional: Gets called once after editing is complete. If your return true, then the new value will not be used. The editing will have no impact on the record. Use this if you do not want a new value from your gui, i.e. you want to cancel the editing.
focusIn
Function
Optional: If doing full line edit, then gets called when focus should be put into the editor
focusOut
Function
Optional: If doing full line edit, then gets called when focus is leaving the editor

The custom numeric editor in the example below demonstrates the useGridCellEditor hook:

Selecting Components

Cell Editor Components are configured using the cellEditor property of the Column Definition.

const [columnDefs, setColumnDefs] = useState([
    { 
        field: 'name', 
        editable: true, 
        // uses a provided editor, referenced by name
        cellEditor: 'agTextCellEditor' 
    },
    { 
        field: 'name', 
        editable: true, 
        // uses a custom editor, referenced directly
        cellEditor: CustomEditorComp
    },
]);

<AgGridReact columnDefs={columnDefs} />

See Registering Custom Components to optionally register components and refernce them by name.

Dynamic Selection

The colDef.cellEditorSelector function allows setting different Editor Components for different Rows within a Column.

The params passed to cellEditorSelector are the same as those passed to the Editor Component. Typically the selector will use this to check the row's contents and choose an editor accordingly.

The result is an object with component and params to use instead of cellEditor and cellEditorParams.

This following shows the Selector always returning back the provided Rich Select Editor:

cellEditorSelector: params => {
    return {
        component: 'agRichSelectCellEditor',
        params: { values: ['Male', 'Female'] }
    };
}

However a selector only makes sense when a selection is made. The following demonstrates selecting between Cell Editors:

cellEditorSelector: params => {

  if (params.data.type === 'age') {
    return {
      component: NumericCellEditor,
    }
  }

  if (params.data.type === 'gender') {
    return {
      component: 'agRichSelectCellEditor',
      params: {
        values: ['Male', 'Female']
      }
    }
  }

  if (params.data.type === 'mood') {
    return {
      component: MoodEditor,
      popup: true,
      popupPosition: 'under'
    }
  }

  return undefined
}

Here is a full example:

  • The column 'Value' holds data of different types as shown in the column 'Type' (numbers/genders/moods).
  • colDef.cellEditorSelector is a function that returns the name of the component to use to edit based on the type of data for that row
  • Edit a cell by double clicking to observe the different editors used.

Dynamic Props

The colDef.cellEditorParams function allows dynamic props independently of the Editor selection. For example you might have a 'City' column that has values based on the 'Country' column.

cellEditorParams: params => {
    const selectedCountry = params.data.country;

    if (selectedCountry === 'Ireland') {
        return {
            values: ['Dublin', 'Cork', 'Galway']
        };
    } else {
        return {
            values: ['New York', 'Los Angeles', 'Chicago', 'Houston']
        };
    }
}

Below shows an example with dynamic props. The following can be noted:

  • Column Gender uses a Cell Component for both the grid and the editor.
  • Column Country allows country selection, with cellHeight being used to make each entry 50px tall. If the currently selected city for the row doesn't match a newly selected country, the city cell is cleared.
  • Column City uses dynamic parameters to display values for the selected country, and uses formatValue to add the selected city's country as a suffix.
  • Column Address uses the large text area editor.

Custom Props

The property colDef.cellEditorParams allows custom props to be passed to editors.

colDef = {
   cellEditor: MyCellEditor,    
   cellEditorParams: {
       // make "country" value available to cell editor
       country: 'Ireland'
   },
   // ...other props
}

An editor can be Inline or Popup.

An Inline Editor Component will be placed inside the Grid's Cell, replacing the Cell contents when active.

A Popup Editor Component appears in a popup over the Cell. Popup Editors are not constrained to the Cells dimensions.

Configure that an Editor is in a popup by setting cellEditorPopup=true on the Column Definition.

colDefs = [
  {
    cellEditor: MyPopupEditor,
    cellEditorPopup: true
    // ...
  }
]

Popup Editors appear over the editing Cell. Configure the Popup Editor to appear below the Cell by setting cellEditorPopupPosition='under' on the Column Definition.

colDef = {
  cellEditorPopup: true,
  cellEditorPopupPosition: 'under',
  // ...other props
}

If a custom cell editor creates its own popup that is anchored outside of the editor component (e.g. like a third-party date picker), then the popup element needs to have the 'ag-custom-component-popup' CSS class. This allows the grid to determine correctly when to stop editing.

Keyboard Navigation

In Custom Editors, you may wish to disable some of the Grids keyboard navigation. For example, if you are providing a simple text editor, you may wish the grid to do nothing when you press the right and left arrows (the default is the grid will move to the next / previous cell) as you may want the right and left arrows to move the cursor inside your editor. In other cell editors, you may wish the grid to behave as normal.

Because different cell editors will have different requirements on what the grid does, it is up to the cell editor to decide which event it wants the grid to handle and which it does not.

You have two options to stop the grid from doing it's default action on certain key events:

  1. Stop propagation of the event to the grid in the cell editor.
  2. Tell the grid to do nothing via the colDef.suppressKeyEvent() callback.

Option 1 - Stop Propagation

If you don't want the grid to act on an event, call event.stopPropagation(). The advantage of this method is that your cell editor takes care of everything, this is good for creating reusable cell editors.

The following code snippet is one you could include for a simple text editor, which would stop the grid from doing navigation.

const KEY_LEFT = 'ArrowLeft';
const KEY_UP = 'ArrowUp';
const KEY_RIGHT = 'ArrowRight';
const KEY_DOWN = 'ArrowDown';
const KEY_PAGE_UP = 'PageUp';
const KEY_PAGE_DOWN = 'PageDown';
const KEY_PAGE_HOME = 'Home';
const KEY_PAGE_END = 'End';

const MyCellEditor = ({ value, onValueChange }) => {
   const onKeyDown = (event) => {
       const key = { event };

       const isNavigationKey = key === KEY_LEFT ||
           key === KEY_RIGHT ||
           key === KEY_UP ||
           key === KEY_DOWN ||
           key === KEY_PAGE_DOWN ||
           key === KEY_PAGE_UP ||
           key === KEY_PAGE_HOME ||
           key === KEY_PAGE_END;

       if (isNavigationKey) {
           // this stops the grid from receiving the event and executing keyboard navigation
           event.stopPropagation();
       }
   }

   return (
       <input
           value={value || ''}
           onChange={({ target: { value: newValue }) => onValueChange(newValue)}
           onKeyDownCapture={onKeyDown}
       />
   );
});

Option 2 - Suppress Keyboard Event

If you implement colDef.suppressKeyboardEvent(), you can tell the grid which events you want to process and which not. The advantage of this method of the previous method is it takes the responsibility out of the cell editor and into the column definition. So if you are using a reusable, or third party, cell editor, and the editor doesn't have this logic in it, you can add the logic via configuration.

suppressKeyboardEvent
Function
default: false
Allows the user to suppress certain keyboard events in the grid cell.
const KEY_UP = 'ArrowUp';
const KEY_DOWN = 'ArrowDown';

const GridExample = () => {
   // rest of the component

   const columnDefs = [
       {
           field: 'value',
           suppressKeyboardEvent={params => {
               console.log('cell is editing: ' + params.editing);
               console.log('keyboard event:', params.event);

               // return true (to suppress) if editing and user hit up/down keys
               const key = params.event.key;
               const gridShouldDoNothing = params.editing && (key === KEY_UP || key === KEY_DOWN);
               return gridShouldDoNothing;
           }
       }
   ];

   return (
       <div
           style={{
               height: '100%',
               width: '100%'
           }}
           className="ag-theme-quartz test-grid">
           <AgGridReact ...rest of the definition...>
               columnDefs={columnDefs}
               />
           </AgGridReact>
       </div>
   );
};

Accessing Instances

After the grid has created an instance of an Editor Component for a Cell it is possible to access that instance. This is useful if you want to call a method that you provide on the Editor that has nothing to do with the operation of the grid. Accessing Editors is done using the grid API getCellEditorInstances(params).

getCellEditorInstances
Function
Returns the list of active cell editor instances. Optionally provide parameters to restrict to certain columns / row nodes.

If you are doing normal editing, then only one cell is editable at any given time. For this reason if you call getCellEditorInstances() with no params, it will return back the editing cell's editor if a cell is editing, or an empty list if no cell is editing.

An example of calling getCellEditorInstances() is as follows:

const instances = api.getCellEditorInstances(params);
if (instances.length > 0) {
   getInstance(instances[0], instance => {
       ...
   });
}

The example below shows using getCellEditorInstances. The following can be noted:

  • All cells are editable.
  • First Name and Last Name use the default editor.
  • All other columns use the provided MySimpleCellEditor editor.
  • The example sets an interval to print information from the active cell editor. There are three results: 1) No editing 2) Editing with default cell renderer and 3) editing with the custom cell editor. All results are printed to the developer console.