This is the respective issue as https://www.drupal.org/project/drupal/issues/80855 for D8, which introduced a new '#type' => 'table' form element in the core Form API (change record: https://www.drupal.org/node/1876710). It comes with built-in, optional support for TableDrag and TableSelect, and it requires no more custom plumbing for most use-cases.
Building and rendering a table required to write a custom/dedicated theme function for most tables in Drupal 7. TableSelect (bulk operations) and TableDrag (drag & drop) support had to be added and attached manually when necessary. This led to many duplicate/unnecessary theme functions, which in turn made it hard for other modules to enhance or alter a table.
This was suggested to be backported to D7, but was rejected, with the recommendation to implement it in contrib (in https://drupal.org/project/elements specifically). Someone backported the D8 version to a dedicated contrib in https://www.drupal.org/project/table_element (only 300 lines of code in a single .module file; including comments: https://git.drupalcode.org/project/table_element/-/blob/7.x-1.x/table_el...).
PS: if we decide to do this, then this d.org issue is also related, and we should create a separate meta-issue for it, to convert all tables in core to the new '#type' => 'table': https://www.drupal.org/project/drupal/issues/1876712
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Another easy way to do this is to use the module Corresponding Entity References (cer). You would need to add an entity reference field in the authors content type pointing at the book, then set...
Backlinks for Entity Reference?
I also found the contextual filter area in the view for this block. But that’s where it stops. I'll try my best - views based on entity reference can be a challenge....
Backlinks for Entity Reference?
Create a block with a contextual filter on the "author" node ID, and based on that relationship get the book node IDs. Thanks! I think I get the general idea. I set up...
Backlinks for Entity Reference?