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List

The List widget provides a way to iterate over a structured dataset, such as an array of objects, and display the data in vertical sections without the need for writing the code. Each list item can contain other widgets to display data or capture user input. Once you bind the data to the first item in the List widget, the subsequent items automatically update with the corresponding values from the dataset.

What’s New with the List Widget?

Content properties

These properties are customizable options present in the property pane of the widget, allowing users to modify the widget according to their preferences.

Data

Items string

Enables you to bind static or dynamic data as an array of objects to the widget. You can bind the object property to the widgets in the list item using currentItem property.

Expected Data Structure:

[
{
"id": "001",
"name": "Blue"
},
{
"id": "002",
"name": "Green"
},
{
"id": "003",
"name": "Red"
}
]

You can add dynamic data to your list by fetching data from queries or JS functions and binding the response to the Items property. For example, if you have a query named fetchData, you can bind its response to the list by adding the following snippet in the Items property:

{{fetchData.data}}

If the retrieved data is not in the desired format, you can use JavaScript to transform it before passing it to the List widget.

Example:

{{fetchData.data.users.map((user) => {
return {
name: user.name,
email: user.email
};
});
}}

Data identifier

Like keys in React, you need to select a data identifier from your dataset, which helps uniquely identify each item. This helps the List widget identify which items are added, have changed, or are removed. You can also combine two columns or data identifiers by enabling the JS mode.

Pagination

Server side pagination

Enables you to implement server side pagination on the List widget.

Total records number

This field displays the number of records in the source data for a list. This value is used to calculate the number of pages to be displayed when using server-side pagination. Note that this field is only visible when Server Side Pagination is enabled.

onPageChange

Allows you to configure one or multiple actions (Framework functions, queries, or JS functions) to be executed when the List's page changes. You can chain multiple actions together, and all the nested actions would run simultaneously.

Item selection

Default selected item

Allows you to specify which item should be selected by default when a user first opens the List widget. To set the Default Selected Item, enter a valid data identifier for the item you want to select.

onitemClick

Allows you to configure one or multiple actions (Framework functions, queries, or JS functions) to be executed when a list item is clicked. You can chain multiple actions together, and all the nested actions would run simultaneously.

General

Visible boolean

Controls the visibility of the widget. If you turn off this property, the widget is not visible in View Mode. Additionally, you can use JavaScript by clicking on JS next to the Visible property to control the widget's visibility conditionally.

For example, if you want to make the widget visible only when the user selects "Yes" from a Select widget, you can use the following JavaScript expression:

{{Select1.selectedOptionValue === "Yes"}}

Animate Loading boolean

Controls whether the widget is displayed with a loading animation. When enabled, the widget shows a skeletal animation during the loading process. Additionally, you can control it through JavaScript by clicking on the JS next to the property.

Style properties

Style properties allow you to change the look and feel of the widget.

General

Item spacing number

Adds padding to the list cells. It accepts Pixels(px) as a unit for the gap width between list item cards.

Color

Background Color string

Sets the background color of the widget, specified as a CSS color value. Additionally, it can be programmatically modified using JavaScript functions.

Border and shadow

Border radius string

Applies rounded corners to the outer edge of the widget. If JavaScript is enabled, you can specify a valid CSS border-radius to adjust the radius of the corners.

Box Shadow string

This property adds a drop shadow effect to the frame of the widget. If JavaScript is enabled, you can specify valid CSS box-shadow values to customize the appearance of the shadow.

Reference properties

Reference properties enable you to access the widget's data and state using the dot operator in other widgets or JavaScript functions. They provide additional information or allow interaction with the widget programmatically.

backgroundColor string

Represents the widget's Background Color setting as a CSS color value.

Example:


{{List1.backgroundColor}}

currentItemsView array

Contains an array of objects where each object represents a widget within the list items and holds information about the widgets' state.

Example:

{{List1.currentItemsView}}

isVisible boolean

The isVisible property indicates the visibility state of a widget, with true indicating it is visible and false indicating it is hidden.

Example:

{{List1.isVisible}}

itemSpacing number

Reflects the vertical spacing between each item. The value can range between 0 and 16.

Example:

{{List1.itemSpacing}}

listData array

Contains an array of objects that each represents a list item and its data.

Example:

{{List1.listData}}

pageNo number

Contains a number representing which page of the List is currently displayed.

Example:

{{List1.pageNo}}

pageSize number

Contains a number representing the number of list items that can fit on one page of the List.

For example:

{{List1.pageSize}}

selectedItem object

Returns an object that contains the data of the selected list item.

Example:

{{List1.selectedItem}}

selectedItemView object

Contains an object representing the state of the widgets inside a list item when it's selected.

Example:

{{List1.selectedItemView}}

triggeredItem object

Contains an object representing the data of the list item that's selected when you click the list item card or when you interact with an widget (such as a button) inside the list item.

Example:

{{List1.triggeredItem}}

triggeredItemView object

Contains an object representing the state of the widgets inside a list item that's selected when you click the list item card or when you interact with a widget (such as a button) inside the list item.

Example:

{{List1.triggeredItemView}}

Internal reference properties

These properties are available only to the widgets placed inside the List widget and enable you to configure the widget's properties based on the position/order of the item.

currentItem object

Represents the data for a particular item.

currentIndex number

Returns the index of the current item.

currentView object

Returns the data and state of the widgets present in the current list item. This property can be used to access all sibling widgets present inside a List item card.

level_* object

This property is only available for nested lists where * represents the level number (from 1 through 3, where 1 refers to the outermost list). It can be used to access the currentItem, currentView and currentIndex properties of the parent lists.

Example:

{{level_1.currentItem.name}}

Methods

Widget property setters enable you to modify the values of widget properties at runtime, eliminating the need to manually update properties in the editor.

These methods are asynchronous and return a Promise. You can use the .then() block to ensure execution and sequencing of subsequent lines of code in Appsmith.

setVisibility (param: boolean): Promise

Sets the visibility of the widget.

Example:

List1.setVisibility(true)

Display data in list items

The Items property accepts data as an array of objects and can bind your dataset to the List widget. You can bind static or dynamic data generated by executing a query or a JS function.

Static data mapping

You can display static JSON data in the Items property for generating the list items.

Example: see the JSON snippet below; a collection of books has details like bookId, bookName, and price.

[
{
"bookId": "001",
"bookName": "Artificial Intelligence for Business Leaders",
"bookImage": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/511Y1LSr0JL.jpg",
"price": "INR 599"
},
{
"bookId": "002",
"bookName": "Bootstrap 4 Quick Start",
"bookImage": "https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41GTBaVKAyL._SX404_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg",
"price": "INR 439.90”
}
]

Add three Text widgets and one Image widget in the first list item to display the data in the List widget.

Follow the steps below to bind each JSON field to the widgets embedded in the List:

  • Select the Image widget and add {{currentItem.bookImage}} under Image property. currentItem refers to the data for a particular item. All the list items get populated based on the corresponding data in the JSON object.
  • You can now see the image in the list item, as the image widget renders the image available on the URL supplied in JSON.

Similarly, you can bind bookName, bookId, and price to the Text widgets in the first list item.

Dynamic data mapping

If you want to bind the response from a query or a JS function, then you can use mustache syntax {{ }}. Use the format of {{QUERY_NAME.data}} to bind the data returned by the query. For example, You a query GetAllEmployees, bind the response in the Items property as shown below:

{{GetAllEmployees.data}}

To learn how to bind data from JS functions, see Display Data from JS function

To display the data in individual widgets in the list item cards, use the currentItem property to bind the corresponding value from the object's fields in the widget as shown below.

{{currentItem.<attribute_or_column_name>}}

where currentItem for the first list item reflects the 0th object in the dataset. This can be used anywhere within a widget that's placed inside the List widget.

Unique list item identifier

The List widget needs to identify each item uniquely to update, reorder, add or remove them. Similar to the Primary Key concept in the database or key in React, an identifier should be selected from the Data identifier property dropdown whose values are unique in the dataset provided to the List widget.

In the preceding example, the identifier bookId has a unique value in the dataset.

If no such unique identifier is present in the data, you can join multiple identifiers to form a unique pattern by enabling the JS mode in the property.

Example:

{{currentItem.bookName + "_" + currentItem.author}}
tip

Always set the Data Identifier property with a valid unique identifier to boost performance.

Access list items

  • You can reference the values of each field inside the array dataset bound to the List for the selected list item using the selectedItem as shown below:


    {{<listName>.selectedItem.<fieldName>}}

    Example - In the preceding example, if you want to display the book name of the selected item in a Text widget, bind it in the Text property of the Text widget as shown below


    {{<listName>.selectedItem.bookName}}
  • You can access the sibling widgets inside a list item card using the currentView property.

    Example - If you have an Input widget and a Button widget inside the List and want to use the Input's Text property to show an alert message on button click. In the button widget's onClick event, you can access the input widget's value as shown below

    {{showAlert(currentView.<inputName>.text)}}

    The currentView property should always be used to access sibling data instead of referencing it directly Eg: {{Input1.text} may seem to work in the app's Edit mode but won't work when deployed.

  • The currentItemsView helps you to view the data and the state of the widgets present in all the items of the List widget and is an array of objects with each widget's state represented as an object. The array of objects is limited to the number of items visible on the page rather than the number list items present. If there are 300 objects in the list data, but the List widget is showing 5 items per page, then the currentItemsView property shows an array of only 5 objects.

    Example - Below is an example of the evaluated value for all the items of the List.

    [
    {
    "Image1": {
    "image": "https://assets.appsmith.com/widgets/default.png",
    "isVisible": true
    },
    "Text2": {
    "isVisible": true,
    "text": "Blue"
    },
    "Text3": {
    "isVisible": true,
    "text": "001"
    }
    },
    {
    "Image1": {
    "image": "https://assets.appsmith.com/widgets/default.png",
    "isVisible": true
    },
    "Text2": {
    "isVisible": true,
    "text": "Green"
    },
    "Text3": {
    "isVisible": true,
    "text": "002"
    }
    },
    {
    "Image1": {
    "image": "https://assets.appsmith.com/widgets/default.png",
    "isVisible": true
    },
    "Text2": {
    "isVisible": true,
    "text": "Red"
    },
    "Text3": {
    "isVisible": true,
    "text": "003"
    }
    }
    ]

    See also