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Custom Lightbox

The ways of creating a custom lightbox

You can create a fully custom lightbox for gantt and replace the default one with it. There are two possible ways to do it:

  1. By redefining the showLightbox method:
gantt.showLightbox = function(id){
// code of the custom form
}
  • id - (string/number) - the task id

There's also the hideLightbox method that will help in the lightbox implementation.

Let's create an HTML container "my-form" where we'll put a custom lightbox:

<div id="my-form">
<label for="description">Task text
<input type="text" name="description" value="" />
</label>



<input type="button" name="save" value="Save"/>
<input type="button" name="close" value="Close"/>
<input type="button" name="delete" value="Delete"/>
</div>

Then to make a custom lightbox, you can use the configuration similar to this:

var taskId = null;

gantt.showLightbox = function(id) {
taskId = id;
var task = gantt.getTask(id);

var form = getForm();
var input = form.querySelector("[name='description']");
input.focus();
input.value = task.text;

form.style.display = "block";

form.querySelector("[name='save']").onclick = save;
form.querySelector("[name='close']").onclick = cancel;
form.querySelector("[name='delete']").onclick = remove;
};

gantt.hideLightbox = function(){
getForm().style.display = "";
taskId = null;
}


function getForm() {
return document.getElementById("my-form");
};

function save() {
var task = gantt.getTask(taskId);

task.text = getForm().querySelector("[name='description']").value;

if(task.$new){
delete task.$new;
gantt.addTask(task,task.parent);
}else{
gantt.updateTask(task.id);
}

gantt.hideLightbox();
}

function cancel() {
var task = gantt.getTask(taskId);

if(task.$new)
gantt.deleteTask(task.id);
gantt.hideLightbox();
}

function remove() {
gantt.deleteTask(taskId);
gantt.hideLightbox();
}
  1. Using the onBeforeLightbox event. In this case the algorithm of actions is the following:
  • detect when the lightbox is about to be shown
  • block the default lightbox
  • show a custom form and fill-in the task data.
gantt.attachEvent("onBeforeLightbox", function(id) {
var task = gantt.getTask(id);
if(task.$new){
dhtmlx.confirm({
text:"Create task?",
callback: function(res){
if(res){
//..apply values
delete task.$new;
gantt.addTask(task);
}else{
gantt.deleteTask(task.id);
}
}
});
return false;
}
return true;
});

Processing actions in the custom form

When user saves the form, you'll need to manually get form values and update the appropriate task using the public API: addTask, updateTask and deleteTask.

Note that when a lightbox is triggered by a new task (on clicking the 'plus' button) which should be deleted if the user clicks 'Cancel' to revert the task creation, the task object will have the '$new' property set.

You can process lightbox closing, as shown in the example below. The type of an action - 'save', 'cancel' or 'delete' is passed as the "action" parameter:

switch(action){
case "save":
task.text = '';// apply values from form

// add new task or update already existing one
if(task.$new){
delete task.$new;
gantt.addTask(task,task.parent)
}else{
gantt.updateTask(id);
}

break;
case "cancel":
// if cancel popup for creating a new task - delete it, otherwise do nothing
if(task.$new)
gantt.deleteTask(id);
break;
case "delete":
gantt.deleteTask(id);
break;
}