How would I go about shading every other row?

[Jan Rembisch]

Hi,

I have a table and I'd love to create a template that shades every other row for increased visibility. 

[Felix Grund (Scandio) · Accepted solution]

Hi Steffen,

Sorry for the late reply. Well actually, this is not as easy as it seems first, because Flying Saucer, the PDF rendering engine Confluence uses, supports only CSS 2.1 (and not even everything from this spec). So nth-child is not supported (as you mentioned). It's not possible either to apply JavaScript to the intermediate HTML code.

The only way to achieve an nth-child-alike effect is to look at fallbacks for old IE browsers using CSS only. There is only one way that I know of, using the adjacent sibling selector. It's pretty ugly and you might need a log of CSS code if your tables are big. But in general it works fine (I tested it).

/* row 1 */ tr,
/* row 3 */ tr + tr + tr,
/* row 4 */ tr + tr + tr + tr + tr { background: #ccc; }
/* ..repeat as often as necessary.. */
/* row 2 */tr + tr,
/* row 4 */ tr + tr + tr + tr,
/* row 6 */ tr + tr + tr + tr + tr + tr { background: #fff; }
/* ..repeat as often as necessary.. */

Let me know if this helps.

Regards, Felix [Scandio]

[Steffen Heller]

Thanks Felix, very good idea. I had given up on the idea of alternating table cells, but this actually works.

[Felix Grund (Scandio)]

Hi Jan!

That's very easy. If you just want it for the default template, create a template like this:

<style>
.pocketquery-table tr:nth-child(odd) {background: #ccc}
</style>

$PocketQuery.template("default")

The example uses the nth-child selector which is compatible with IE > 8, so it should be ok by now.

Look at our article on Templating in PocketQuery if you want to dive in further!

Regards, Felix [Scandio]

[Qqwe Rrt]

Shading every other row is a simple yet effective way to improve the visibility of table data. It helps users easily differentiate between rows, making the content much more readable and organized. This technique is a great addition to any table design, enhancing both aesthetics and functionality.

[Steffen Heller]

Hello,

I would like that appearance with different row colours for PDF exports. Any chance to realise that even though nth-child() is not supported by the confluence CSS engine?

[Felix Grund (Scandio)]

Are you asking about PDF export in relation to PocketQuery results? Or PDF export in general?

[Steffen Heller]

PDF export in general: Can I create tables in confluence that have alternating row colours when I export them to PDF?

[Jan Rembisch]

Thank you Felix, works like a charm!

[Felix Grund (Scandio)]

If you like PocketQuery, we would be very happy about a review at the marketplace :)

[Felix Grund (Scandio)]

Oh, and it would be nice if you marked my answer as "accepted".