Add Instant filter functionality in D8 core.

I worked on the project, and for now it's not viable for mobile with > 100 table rows (not uncommon for module page). Initial filtering takes more than a second on mobile where it just completely freezes. Furthermore, the API is a mess. MOstly because I tried to make it work for non-table content, which became quite a closet monster.

Performance can be heavily increased by using virtual scrolling, but that has its own set of problems (accessibility, page height because table rows can have various heights - which changes on resize).

Module filter, last time I checked it (which is a while ago so correct me if necessary!), uses ajax calls to get search listings. That's not ideal IMHO, because a) you're making potentially a lot of ajax calls, b) each ajax call is the same as calling the modules page, which basically means a total refresh of your modules cache.

A fix that might be interesting for instant Filter would be using a documentFragment to make all the changes and swap the entire table content on each filter action. This is basically the same what module filter does as soon as it gets it ajax content.

All I'm saying is that I don't think either approaches, module filter or instant filter, are something worthy of including in core, at this point.

Furthermore, pagers are a whole new can of worms. If a table has a pager, and I fill in something in a search field, surely I expect it to be a global search (meaning I should also get results from page 2,3 etc). But javascript can't find that out from the DOM tree, because it's paginated... Meaning it needs some sort of ajax call, or a huge variable at page load which contains all the info about all the results.

Lastly, the filter loop (figuring out which results to show, and actually showing them) needs to be heavily optimized to make it work for mobile.

Personally I'd favor a javascript based solution, with the following requirements:

• Make it work for tables only (at least initially)
• Figure out how to handle paged results
• make it extensible enough to provide additional filtering (groups, other attributes) methods
• Make it performant for filtering thousands of rows at once, on mobile.
• Make the search field use autocomplete
• All while keeping it accessible

Which isn't exactly an easy task.

Oh yea, another requirement: sane form submit with paged tables and a global javascript search.

That's part of the figuring out process. However, deciding what is and what isn't acceptable first should lead to a much more painless patch acceptance.

In other words, get some replies from regular core contributors who have an affinity with javascript. Sun for example, because he posted in a previous topic, nod_ and seutje because they are the javascript maintainers (if I'm not mistaken), and a whole bunch of other people who are js ninjas but whose names I temporarily forgot (it's late, and I want to go to bed :)).

@klonos, Kiphaas7 No offense, but you guys are so unproductive on this. I've mentioned we are open to doing this, in the past but instant filter never came to fruition. I suggest you either get in contact with nod_, seutje about this, and open up a patch or just close this issue. There is no reason to have side-issue nr. 213 on the module page redesign, because it isn't moving.

Bojhan: thats basically what I said in #6. It never came to fruition because of technical issues and no clear path forward, as mentioned in #1 and #3. Having a clear path forward is extremely important for having an acceptable technical implementation of a javascript based filtering tool (again, #1, #3).

Agreed this is unproductive. Postponing because of #8.

If this is still a valid feature request I believe the boat has sailed for 8.0.x and this should be bumped to either 8.1.x or even 9.0.x

I don't see a compelling use-case for core to provide this outside of core interfaces (which are all a little different and require all slightly different code). as far as core interfaces are concerned I haven't seen this pop up in a long time, closing preventively. Ping me if you think it should be reopened.

related issue has a better defined issue summary