I couldn’t find a good set of macros to help navigate through paginated data so I wrote my own. The macro names echo the names of the CakePHP PaginationHelper functions because…well, they’re reasonably sensible.

The macros expect you to add a model attribute called “paginationData” which contains (at least) the following properties:

pageNumber -> The current page number
pageSize -> The number of items in each page
pagesAvailable -> The total number of pages
sortDirection -> The sorting direction (ascending or descending)
sortField -> The field currently sorted by

In my implementation, my paginationData also contains a property called “pageItems” – the actual items in this page.

The macros available to you are:

• first
  Outputs a link to the first page
• last
  Outputs a link to the last page
• next
  Outputs a link to the next page
• previous
  Outputs a link to the previous page
• numbers
  Outputs links to other pages. The macro takes a parameter called “maxPages”, which is the maximum number of pages that should be output. There is also a second parameter “separator”, which is the text/html that should be output between each page link.
• page
  Outputs a link to a particular page. It takes the page number and link text as parameters. If you omit the link text it’ll default to the page number
• counter
  Outputs the current page number and the total pages e.g. “1 of 20″
• sort
  Outputs a link to sort by a field. Takes the field to sort by as its first parameter. If field is different to the current sort field, the link will change the sort field but not the sort direction. If the field is the same as the current sort field, the link will change the sort direction. The second parameter is the link text, which defaults to the field name with an upper case first letter. It also takes a parameter called “directions”. This is an an array of two items: the words being used in paginationData.sortDirection to describe the sorting direction of ascending or descending. Default: ["Asc", "Desc"]. So it can compare the current sorting direction and switch to the converse.

Note, ordinarily you’ll probably not need to use the “page” macro.

How to use

In Java, add a model attribute “paginationData” containing the properties I’ve described above. Then, in your view, import the library:

    <#import "pagination.ftl" as pagination />

Call the macros:

    <nav style="float:right;">
        <@pagination.first />
        <@pagination.previous />
        <@pagination.numbers />
        <@pagination.next />
        <@pagination.last />
    </nav>
    <@pagination.counter />

Which’ll give you something like:

For table headings that allow sorting:

    <table>
        <tr>
            <th><@pagination.sort "forename" /></th>
            <th><@pagination.sort "surname" /></th>
            <th><@pagination.sort "email" /></th>
            <th><@pagination.sort "created" "Registration date" /></th>
        </tr>
        ...
    </table>

Download

You can download the pagination macros here.