Ag Grid autoHeight and wrapText not working when using custom cellRenderer

2 min read 06-10-2024

Ag Grid autoHeight and wrapText not working when using custom cellRenderer

Ag Grid: AutoHeight and WrapText Not Working With Custom Cell Renderers

Ag Grid's powerful features allow for highly customized data grids. However, one common issue encountered is the failure of autoHeight and wrapText when using a custom cell renderer. This can lead to truncated cell content or a grid that doesn't adjust to the content, resulting in a less-than-ideal user experience.

The Problem:

Imagine you have a grid displaying product descriptions. You want the descriptions to wrap within the cell, adjusting the row height automatically to accommodate the text. You've set autoHeight: true and wrapText: true on your grid options, but the text still overflows, and the row height remains fixed. This happens because your custom cell renderer might be interfering with these settings.

Understanding the Issue:

When you use a custom cell renderer, Ag Grid is no longer in control of how the cell content is rendered. It's the responsibility of your custom renderer to handle the text rendering, including wrapping and height adjustments. Here's a simple example of a custom renderer that might cause this problem:

function myCellRenderer(params) {
  return `<div>${params.value}</div>`;
}

This renderer simply renders the cell value within a <div> element. Since the <div> doesn't have any explicit width or height defined, it will default to the minimum required to contain the text, causing the overflow and fixed row height.

Solutions:

To fix this, you need to modify your custom renderer to allow for text wrapping and automatic height calculation. Here's how you can do it:

Explicitly Set Width and Height:

In your custom renderer, add styles that allow for text wrapping and automatic height calculation.
```
function myCellRenderer(params) {
  return `<div style="width: 100%; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-all; white-space: pre-wrap; height: auto;">${params.value}</div>`;
}
```
- width: 100%: Ensures the cell content takes up the full width of the cell.
- overflow-wrap: break-word: Enables text to break within a word if it's too long for the cell.
- word-break: break-all: Allows words to be broken at any character to fit the cell width.
- white-space: pre-wrap: Preserves whitespace and allows line breaks.
- height: auto: Allows the height to adjust automatically based on the content.

Using getRenderedCell:

You can use Ag Grid's getRenderedCell method within your custom renderer to access the DOM element of the rendered cell. This allows you to directly manipulate the styles and content.

function myCellRenderer(params) {
  const cellDiv = params.api.getRenderedCell(params.rowIndex, params.colDef.field);
  cellDiv.style.width = "100%";
  cellDiv.style.overflowWrap = "break-word";
  cellDiv.style.wordBreak = "break-all";
  cellDiv.style.whiteSpace = "pre-wrap";
  cellDiv.style.height = "auto";
  return `<div>${params.value}</div>`;
}

This approach provides more granular control over the cell rendering.

Additional Tips:

Performance: Avoid complex DOM manipulations within your custom renderer to avoid performance issues, especially in large grids.
CSS Classes: Consider using CSS classes instead of inline styles for better maintainability and organization.

Conclusion:

By understanding the issue and implementing the suggested solutions, you can successfully use autoHeight and wrapText with custom cell renderers in Ag Grid. This will result in a more visually appealing and user-friendly grid that adapts to your data effectively.

Resources:

Ag Grid documentation: https://www.ag-grid.com/
Stack Overflow: https://stackoverflow.com/
Ag Grid API reference: https://www.ag-grid.com/javascript-grid-api/