How to change the number of pagination buttons of the DataTables jQuery plugin

Question

By default, DataTables plugin shows 7 paging buttons (including the ellipses) like

Previous 1 2 3 4 5 ... 10 Next

I would like to be able to change this to a smaller number like

Previous 1 ... 10 Next

and I can't find this anywhere in the documentation.

I found this plugin but it says that's deprecated and that the

DataTables 1.10 has this ability built in.

but it doesn't show where to change this.

Answer 1

I finally found it after fiddling with the DataTable javascript object and the DataTables' source code.

You have to add this line (either before or after initialization):

$.fn.DataTable.ext.pager.numbers_length = 3;

Note that this will show up like

Previous 1 ... 10 Next

and not

Previous 1 2 ... 10 Next

so be sure to include the ellipses in the length number.

Edit:

I saw some problems with this solution when advancing through the pages.

I had to rewrite their _numbers function like this:

function _numbers(page, pages) {
    var
        numbers = [],
        buttons = 5, // added here the number of buttons
        half = Math.floor(buttons / 2);

    if(pages <= buttons) {
        numbers = _range(0, pages);
    } else if(page <= half) {
        numbers = _range(0, buttons - 2);

        numbers.push("ellipsis");
        numbers.push(pages - 1);
    } else if(page >= pages - 1 - half) {
        numbers = _range(pages - (buttons - 2), pages);

        numbers.splice(0, 0, "ellipsis");
        numbers.splice(0, 0, 0);
    } else {
        numbers.push(page); // changed this from _range(page - 1, page + 2);
        numbers.push("ellipsis");
        numbers.push(pages - 1);
        numbers.splice(0, 0, "ellipsis");
        numbers.splice(0, 0, 0);
    }

    numbers.DT_el = "span";

    return numbers;
}

And used this to point out DataTables to my own function:

$.fn.DataTable.ext.pager.simple_numbers = function(page, pages) {
    return ["previous", _numbers(page, pages), "next"];
};

Also, I had to copy their _range function into my main.js file.