How to Use slideDown (or show) function on a table row?

Animations are not supported on table rows.

From "Learning jQuery" by Chaffer and Swedberg


Table rows present particular obstacles to animation, since browsers use different values (table-row and block) for their visible display property. The .hide() and .show() methods, without animation, are always safe to use with table rows. As of jQuery version 1.1.3, .fadeIn() and .fadeOut() can be used as well.


You can wrap your td contents in a div and use the slideDown on that. You need to decide if the animation is worth the extra markup.


I simply wrap the tr dynamically then remove it once the slideUp/slideDown has complete. It's a pretty small overhead adding and removing one or a couple of tags and then removing them once the animation is complete, I don't see any visible lag at all doing it.

SlideUp:

$('#my_table > tbody > tr.my_row')
 .find('td')
 .wrapInner('<div style="display: block;" />')
 .parent()
 .find('td > div')
 .slideUp(700, function(){

  $(this).parent().parent().remove();

 });

SlideDown:

$('#my_table > tbody > tr.my_row')
 .find('td')
 .wrapInner('<div style="display: none;" />')
 .parent()
 .find('td > div')
 .slideDown(700, function(){

  var $set = $(this);
  $set.replaceWith($set.contents());

 });

I have to pay tribute to fletchzone.com as I took his plugin and stripped it back to the above, cheers mate.


Here's a plug-in that I wrote up for this, it takes a little from Fletch's implementation, but mine is used solely to slide a row up or down (no inserting rows).

(function($) {
var sR = {
    defaults: {
        slideSpeed: 400,
        easing: false,
        callback: false     
    },
    thisCallArgs: {
        slideSpeed: 400,
        easing: false,
        callback: false
    },
    methods: {
        up: function (arg1,arg2,arg3) {
            if(typeof arg1 == 'object') {
                for(p in arg1) {
                    sR.thisCallArgs.eval(p) = arg1[p];
                }
            }else if(typeof arg1 != 'undefined' && (typeof arg1 == 'number' || arg1 == 'slow' || arg1 == 'fast')) {
                sR.thisCallArgs.slideSpeed = arg1;
            }else{
                sR.thisCallArgs.slideSpeed = sR.defaults.slideSpeed;
            }

            if(typeof arg2 == 'string'){
                sR.thisCallArgs.easing = arg2;
            }else if(typeof arg2 == 'function'){
                sR.thisCallArgs.callback = arg2;
            }else if(typeof arg2 == 'undefined') {
                sR.thisCallArgs.easing = sR.defaults.easing;    
            }
            if(typeof arg3 == 'function') {
                sR.thisCallArgs.callback = arg3;
            }else if(typeof arg3 == 'undefined' && typeof arg2 != 'function'){
                sR.thisCallArgs.callback = sR.defaults.callback;    
            }
            var $cells = $(this).find('td');
            $cells.wrapInner('<div class="slideRowUp" />');
            var currentPadding = $cells.css('padding');
            $cellContentWrappers = $(this).find('.slideRowUp');
            $cellContentWrappers.slideUp(sR.thisCallArgs.slideSpeed,sR.thisCallArgs.easing).parent().animate({
                                                                                                                paddingTop: '0px',
                                                                                                                paddingBottom: '0px'},{
                                                                                                                complete: function () {
                                                                                                                    $(this).children('.slideRowUp').replaceWith($(this).children('.slideRowUp').contents());
                                                                                                                    $(this).parent().css({'display':'none'});
                                                                                                                    $(this).css({'padding': currentPadding});
                                                                                                                }});
            var wait = setInterval(function () {
                if($cellContentWrappers.is(':animated') === false) {
                    clearInterval(wait);
                    if(typeof sR.thisCallArgs.callback == 'function') {
                        sR.thisCallArgs.callback.call(this);
                    }
                }
            }, 100);                                                                                                    
            return $(this);
        },
        down: function (arg1,arg2,arg3) {
            if(typeof arg1 == 'object') {
                for(p in arg1) {
                    sR.thisCallArgs.eval(p) = arg1[p];
                }
            }else if(typeof arg1 != 'undefined' && (typeof arg1 == 'number' || arg1 == 'slow' || arg1 == 'fast')) {
                sR.thisCallArgs.slideSpeed = arg1;
            }else{
                sR.thisCallArgs.slideSpeed = sR.defaults.slideSpeed;
            }

            if(typeof arg2 == 'string'){
                sR.thisCallArgs.easing = arg2;
            }else if(typeof arg2 == 'function'){
                sR.thisCallArgs.callback = arg2;
            }else if(typeof arg2 == 'undefined') {
                sR.thisCallArgs.easing = sR.defaults.easing;    
            }
            if(typeof arg3 == 'function') {
                sR.thisCallArgs.callback = arg3;
            }else if(typeof arg3 == 'undefined' && typeof arg2 != 'function'){
                sR.thisCallArgs.callback = sR.defaults.callback;    
            }
            var $cells = $(this).find('td');
            $cells.wrapInner('<div class="slideRowDown" style="display:none;" />');
            $cellContentWrappers = $cells.find('.slideRowDown');
            $(this).show();
            $cellContentWrappers.slideDown(sR.thisCallArgs.slideSpeed, sR.thisCallArgs.easing, function() { $(this).replaceWith( $(this).contents()); });

            var wait = setInterval(function () {
                if($cellContentWrappers.is(':animated') === false) {
                    clearInterval(wait);
                    if(typeof sR.thisCallArgs.callback == 'function') {
                        sR.thisCallArgs.callback.call(this);
                    }
                }
            }, 100);
            return $(this);
        }
    }
};

$.fn.slideRow = function(method,arg1,arg2,arg3) {
    if(typeof method != 'undefined') {
        if(sR.methods[method]) {
            return sR.methods[method].apply(this, Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments,1));
        }
    }
};
})(jQuery);

Basic Usage:

$('#row_id').slideRow('down');
$('#row_id').slideRow('up');

Pass slide options as individual arguments:

$('#row_id').slideRow('down', 500); //slide speed
$('#row_id').slideRow('down', 500, function() { alert('Row available'); }); // slide speed and callback function
$('#row_id').slideRow('down', 500, 'linear', function() { alert('Row available'); }); slide speed, easing option and callback function
$('#row_id').slideRow('down', {slideSpeed: 500, easing: 'linear', callback: function() { alert('Row available');} }); //options passed as object

Basically, for the slide down animation, the plug-in wraps the contents of the cells in DIVs, animates those, then removes them, and vice versa for the slide up (with some extra steps to get rid of the cell padding). It also returns the object you called it on, so you can chain methods like so:

$('#row_id').slideRow('down').css({'font-color':'#F00'}); //make the text in the row red

Hope this helps someone.