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Re: Can't get output.table to make a nice looking table

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I’ve been playing around with the scripting block, while learning Java script.
I’m trying to make a script to generate pivot tables.

I’m a little stock on understanding why my output.table(tableArray) in below code doesn’t make a nice table similar to my test table? Anyone that can see from my output what I’m doing wrong?

const table = base.getTable('report');

let queryResult = await table.selectRecordsAsync();
output.inspect(queryResult);


//Row names
let nameArray = []
for (let record of queryResult.records){
  //nameArray.push(record.name)  
  nameArray.push(record.getCellValue('Select Name')[0].name)  
};
const uniqueNames = [...new Set(nameArray)];
output.inspect(uniqueNames);

//Coloumn names
let itemsArray = []
for (let record of queryResult.records){
  itemsArray.push(record.getCellValue('Working on'))
}
const uniqueItems = [...new Set(itemsArray)]
output.inspect(uniqueItems);


//Make Rows
let tableArray = [];
for(let i=0; i<uniqueNames.length; i++ ){
  
  let categories = uniqueItems.map(record => {
    return (' '+ record + ': ' + '£0')
    })
 
 nameItem = uniqueNames[i]
  tableArray.push(`{Name/Item: ${nameItem}, ${categories}}`);
}
output.inspect(tableArray)

output.table(tableArray)

//Outcome - Test table
output.table([
        {'Name/Item': 'John', Car: '', Bus: '£34', Scooter: '', '':''},
        {'Name/Item': 'Dan', Car: '£32', Scooter: '£70', '':''},
        {'Name/Item': 'Theo', Bus: '£90', Car: '£50'},
    ]);

My output:
Screenshot 2020-03-25 at 14.45.02

8 Replies 8

Yes, the first two arrays are simply data values, whereas, the pretty one is an array of JSON objects. And output.table() want’s an array of JSON objects.

Thank you @Bill.French, still early days on my Java Script journey.
Thank you for taking your time to answer my questions.

I got it to work passing real objects, i naively thought I could just put a string with some curly braces and an object would appear.

I got it to work with making a few for loops. Is there an easier/more straight forward way to do the below?

//Make Rows
let tableArray = []

for(let i=0; i<uniqueNames.length; i++ ){

  let obj= {};
  obj['Name/Item']=uniqueNames[i];

  for(let i=0; i<uniqueItems.length; i++){
    obj[uniqueItems[i]]=0;
  }
 
 output.inspect(obj)

 tableArray.push(obj);
}

No, I think that’s pretty elegant. And to add - the best code is neither elegant or correct; it is maintainable and understandable mostly by you.

@Bill.French, do you know if there is any way to style the output table?
I’ve been trying different things with markdown, however I don’t really seem to be getting anywhere.

Nope; not that I’m aware. Until they open access to the DOM and CSS in the script frame, this will be a challenge. It demonstrates the stark difference between Script Blocks and Custom Blocks.

The issue is security; any script block with unabated access to HTML, CSS, and the DOM could allow nefarious stuff to creep in and attack the entire Airtable infrastructure.

The only approach I have imagined is using script to generate images that render precise and well-formed displays of content.

I guess I’ll have to work towards graduating to use Custom Blocks.

Thanks for that info Bill, Scripts are great, but I guess I too will start to investigate Custom Apps/Blocks due to the output text/colour format limitations of scripts.

I was hoping their might be away to add row colour to every odd row of an output table, but doesn’t appear so. :frowning:

Ya’ know - the earth has traveled 584 million miles since this thread was created and despite that, there’s still no remedy. :winking_face: Ironically, we’re back in the same location in space so, in a sense - we’re standing still.