"New" Table Visualization has some major flaws

There’s a reason the “Legacy” Table Visualization is still kicking around (for how long? 1 year? 2?)… The “New” Table Visualization needs some serious work!

  1. Header row NEEDS to allow wrapping.
  2. “Auto-size columns” gives way too much width to the columns.
  3. Row Number column is WAY too wide (and isn’t adjustable!!)

Could Looker please please please invest into getting the “New” Table Visualization up to snuff because the Legacy one has been neglected to the point that it completely buggers out in some cases (e.g. with both Row and Column totals), and this alternative isn’t really working either.

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31 REPLIES 31

Thanks for the feedback, we’re actively working on much of this, and I’ll make sure this gets to the right people. Table-next is getting continuously improved and worked on, and the eventual goal is for it to replace the Legacy table. We’re aiming to achieve parity with Legacy as well as stability before any kind of total replacement.

drewski
Participant I

Reporting another related feature request for the table visualizations:

Improve usability across screen resolutions/devices.

Currently the choice is between a table that does not expand to the width of a tile on larger screen resolutions, but allows for horizontal scrolling on mobile without word wrapping or truncating text - or a table that expands to width on larger screen resolutions, but compresses the column text on smaller screen resolutions, either through word-wrapping or truncation.

The idea would be to allow a table to expand to the width of a dashboard tile when all text can fit within the columns (e.g., using functionality similar to the “Size Columns to Fit” setting), but then enabling a horizontal scrollbar similar to what happens when the ‘gear’ option “Autosize All Columns” is selected to allow all text to be displayed in the table without word wrapping or truncation, just via the horizontal scroll bar. So some combination of these two existing features may get the job done in a user friendly way.

Might also be easily accomplished by allowing for min-width and/or max-width definitions for tables and/or columns.

Can we get details on what remains to achieve this parity? Our users have reported issues with the new table that we have been trying to chalk up to “pending resolution” for some time now.

Maybe you can reach out to some folks on the Data Studio team to help out with tables. 😉

Agree wholeheartedly. Love the new functionality, just wish the column widths could work “automagically” like the legacy table does! It’s the only thing stopping me from using the new version.

Hi, Is there any update on auto-resizing of column widths?

Hi, Is there any update on auto-resizing of column widths?

Wondering the same. I’m a big fan of some of the new table features,  but it’s difficult to feel good about using them when simple things like headers are unreadable in many instances. Hoping for an update soon, thank you!

Dawid
Participant V

There’s another topic here where we try to gather all the things that still need some attention: https://community.looker.com/dashboards-looks-7/anyone-still-frustrated-with-table-next-20961?postid...

Hey everyone,

We have shipped some improvements for the Table next visualization in Looker 22.2 release. We hope these will address some of the concerns shared in this thread. 

Specifically, we added following:

  1. An option to wrap the header rows: We have now added a separate option in the visualization config that lets you control if header row content truncates or not. More details in Looker docs here.
    1. We have enabled a tooltip for the cases where header text is truncated and this will help users view the full text on hover in the tooltip
      Overall, this one would improve readability of header text in the tables. 
  2. We improved the auto-width allocated to the row number column so it takes optimal space (it was previously taking way more width than needed)
  3. Other formatting improvements include optimizations to the row height, no more data clipping for Table content when settings like truncation are toggled on/ off, no more tooltip cluttering, sort icons are now visible for the Tables headers/ pivoted columns in the Explore view, and also we fixed column resizing issues for subtotal columns & pivoted columns

Shashank

Dawid
Participant V

Great news,

Could this be a tiny bug that creeped in while working on it:

7060281d-fbf6-41de-8370-d39962cc295f.png

The icons get the blue colour even for a measure. WIthout the hover it looks weird:

04f77860-cb39-4f02-8369-66141741a66a.png

minerkt
Participant IV

@Dawid I recently noticed this too.  I am also hoping it is a bug that will be addressed rather than a feature.

While it is valuable that the header text now wraps, it not being adjustable so it’s visible is quite a problem. As a user, I don’t necessarily want to truncate the header text as it is way more beneficial to see it in its entirety which would be possible if it wrapped properly.

82bbd4e1-87b7-4d3a-93bc-323977ea109a.png

We are on 22.10.32 and I’m seeing the same issue as nikki.greco has pointed out above. Autosizing columns doesn't help even though the defnition suggests it should. https://docs.looker.com/exploring-data/visualizing-query-results/table-next-options#autosize_all_col...

I have the following parameters explicitly declared in the LookML for the dashboard (screenshot) but it still looks bad
    truncate_text: false
    size_to_fit: false
    auto_size_all_columns: true
    truncate_column_names: false
 

54360457-e8cb-4639-ac20-5b98106bef6a.png

Hi @Shashank89 @Katie_Gillespie , do you have any updates on the column header wrapping/cropping/padding issue in text tables? Apologies for pinging you directly but my team and our end users are getting pretty fed up with formatting issues on table visualizations and I’m not sure where else to relay that info.

Upvoting all the issues mentioned above. We really need an update on the header display issue. All of our existing dashboards are having trouble showing the headers correctly (truncated). It becomes a pain in the neck for the stakeholders to view the dashboard as well as for the users to adjust the headers (have to manually set up the width for every single header now). 

blue1
Participant III

@uhussain , I am having the same issues for a few weeks not, headers are being clipped on the top and bottom as well as the right side where the buttons appear on hover.

Bumping this as well  - feel bad shipping tables with these headers to my team.

Bumping this also - embarrassed sending these out to our business looking like this.

How did this pass QA? Can we please get an update on when this will be fixed. As others have noted, this makes our BI team look terrible when people think we cant even design a table correctly. ?

DGS
Participant I

Bumping also, this is causing major problems when reports are scheduled - how can this be escalated? 

Thank you.

Bumping too, when the executives are looking at the dashboards they do not have the time to resize all the columns or hover to look at headers, it is becoming a major issue

Same… This header wrapping issue is one of the biggest complaints for our end users and is causing some of them to blame our BI devs for shoddy design ?

A possible short term “fix” here might be to allow us to set the header height, or the vertical centering of the header row.

Same here, `auto_size_all_columns` does not work. The tiles in my LookML dashboard have different column width for same value with same settings.

Also bumping this - In some cases the column header is cutoff both vertically and horizontally. It can only be read by hovering over it. I have truncate column names set to false.

f31f700d-3a75-488d-8c06-4df0a083c3db.png

Dawid
Participant V

Oh yes the vertical cropping popped in recently, I don’t think it was there before.. 

Wanted to jump in here. This is really just making all of our dashboards very difficult to read. This is a massive issue that needs to be addressed quickly. 

d8056510-d28e-4646-8d83-55c201f8026d.png

Heads up that this issue (FINALLY!) appears to have been fixed by the latest update. We’re on Looker 22.12.38 now and header logic seems to be significantly improved. If your instance hasn’t been updated yet you can try reaching out to Looker support to expedite the timeline.

When can we expect a fix?

I’m embarrassed to present my dashboards.

Hi everyone, 
May I also throw in an inability to control value formatting when series visualisation is switched on & inability to format row numbers… This is generally ok, but when I tried to add a table into an embedded dash with dark theme it proved to be a nuisance. 

I suppose even wider than that, shouldn’t font colours within the table be affected by selected theme settings in the same way it happens for many other visuals? 

I hear there is a bunch of developments coming on the vis front, holding my fingers crossed for many improvements 🙂 

+1 on all of the feedback above 

Wow the first post is 2 years ago about this and the looker studio still doesn’t allow warp text for PV table 

Dawid
Participant V

This isn't about Data Studio 🙂 

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