whitespace problem magento admin html grid renderer - php

Question

I have rewritten the app/code/core/Mage/Adminhtml/Block/Sales/Order/Grid.php
with app/code/local/Mage/Adminhtml/Block/Sales/Order/Grid.php
& have created a renderer to display customer's email column in grid.
Here is my renderer file:
class Mage_Adminhtml_Block_Renderer_Customer extends Mage_Adminhtml_Block_Widget_Grid_Column_Renderer_Abstract
{
public function render(Varien_Object $row)
{
$model = Mage::getModel('customer/customer')->load($row->getCustomerId());
return $model->getEmail();
}
}
& here is my Grid changes (I just added a column, & I intend to make it search-able)
$this->addColumn('billing_name', array(
'header' => Mage::helper('sales')->__('Bill to Name'),
'index' => 'billing_name',
));
// this is new col.
$this->addColumn('customer_email', array(
'header' => Mage::helper('sales')->__('Customer Email'),
'renderer' => 'adminhtml/renderer_customer',
));
I am getting what I want. But this col/ has a lot of whitespace both leading & trailing
due to this I think this col. is not search-able.
Can Anybody suggest what can be done in order to remove these white spaces
Many thanks in advance
EDIT
After few days I have figured out that these white spaces are common in the grid & it has nothing to do with the search-able option.
Can anybody suggest that how to make a custom column in search-able that has been added to a grid by using a renderer ???
Thanks
2 EDIT
Guys According to the clockworkgeek I have customized
my _prepareCollection() method of the overwritten grid as follows
protected function _prepareCollection()
{
// 'sales/order_collection' is changed from 'sales/order_grid_collection'
$collection = Mage::getResourceModel('sales/order_collection');
$collection->addAttributeToSelect('*')
->joinAttribute('billing_firstname', 'order_address/firstname', 'billing_address_id', null, 'left')
->joinAttribute('billing_lastname', 'order_address/lastname', 'billing_address_id', null, 'left')
->joinAttribute('shipping_firstname', 'order_address/firstname', 'shipping_address_id', null, 'left')
->joinAttribute('shipping_lastname', 'order_address/lastname', 'shipping_address_id', null, 'left')
->joinAttribute('billing_fax', 'order_address/fax', 'billing_address_id', null, 'left')
->joinAttribute('billing_telephone', 'order_address/telephone', 'billing_address_id', null, '')
->addExpressionAttributeToSelect('billing_name',
'CONCAT({{billing_firstname}}, " ", {{billing_lastname}})',
array('billing_firstname', 'billing_lastname'))
->addExpressionAttributeToSelect('shipping_name',
'CONCAT({{shipping_firstname}}, " ", {{shipping_lastname}})',
array('shipping_firstname', 'shipping_lastname'));
$this->setCollection($collection);
return parent::_prepareCollection();
}
I also have investigated that for Grid Magento obtains data from sales_flat_order_grid table not from sales_flat_order this is the reason it was reporting error of unknow column as per the clockworkgeek first solution
THe issue with current implementation is Magento reports an error Fatal error: Call to undefined method Mage_Sales_Model_Mysql4_Order_Collection::addExpressionAttributeToSelect()
as Mage_Sales_Model_Mysql4_Order_Collection does not have addExpressionAttributeToSelect method instead it has addExpressionFieldToSelect method
Now I need help to write a proper syntax for addExpressionAttributeToSelect method. Changing the method name only is not helping me. I also have referred the docs

Answer 1

Add 'index' => 'email' to your addColumn() in the Grid.php and then try something like this:
$emailaddress = trim($row->getData($this->getColumn()->getIndex()));
return ''.$emailaddress.'';
That way you strip the whitespace and also provide a clickable link for your admin users :)

Answer 2

In response to the second part of your question may I offer this little trick.
Adminhtml grid columns can take an extra filter_condition_callback parameter which takes a standard PHP callback type. In your case you might modify the grid like this:
protected function _prepareColumns() {
// ...
$this->addColumn('customer_email', array(
'header' => Mage::helper('sales')->__('Customer Email'),
'renderer' => 'adminhtml/renderer_customer',
'filter_condition_callback' => array($this, 'addCustomerEmailFilter'),
));
}
public function addCustomerEmailFilter(Mage_Eav_Model_Entity_Collection_Abstract $collection, Mage_Adminhtml_Block_Widget_Grid_Column $column) {
$collection->addAttributeToFilter('customer_email', $column->getFilter()->getValue());
}
But all that still feels a bit messy, especially if the attribute is not a first class column. For those unusual cases you can combine the output processing and searching in the collection class...
protected function _initSelect() {
parent::_initSelect();
// email is existing column, customer_email is generated column
$this->addExpressionAttributeToSelect(
'customer_email',
'TRIM({{email}})',
array('email')
);
return $this;
}
The addExpressionAttributeToSelect() method temporarily stores the SQL expression as a mapped field so that when a grid tries to search for customer_email it gets substituted by the expression instead.