Vue Data Grid Row Reordering

Some lists have an order that only a person can decide: a task backlog, a playlist, the steps of a workflow. row-order gives each row a grip, and the grid tells you where the row was dropped — you own the data, so you own the new order.

Row reordering

row-order adds a narrow handle column before the data columns. Only the grip starts a drag: a row is full of interactive content — checkboxes, editors, custom cells — that a whole-row handle would swallow.

<script setup lang="ts">
import { CDataGrid } from '@coreui/vue-data-grid'
import type { DataGridItem } from '@coreui/vue-data-grid'
import { ref } from 'vue'

const items = ref<DataGridItem[]>([
  { id: 1, task: 'Draft the release notes', owner: 'Alice', status: 'In progress' },
  { id: 2, task: 'Review the API surface', owner: 'Bob', status: 'Blocked' },
  { id: 3, task: 'Ship the beta', owner: 'Carol', status: 'Todo' },
  { id: 4, task: 'Update the changelog', owner: 'Dave', status: 'Todo' }
])

const columns = [
  { key: 'task', label: 'Task' },
  { key: 'owner', label: 'Owner' },
  { key: 'status', label: 'Status' }
]
</script>

<template>
  <CDataGrid
    :columns="columns"
    :items="items"
    :item-key="(item) => String(item.id)"
    :sorting="false"
    :virtualization="false"
    row-order
    @row-order-change="items = $event.items"
  />
</template>

The contract

The grid never mutates items. Dropping a row fires @row-order-change with everything needed to apply the move — the same contract inline editing uses:

Until you apply it, nothing changes on screen. That is deliberate: the order is usually persisted, and a row that snaps back when the request fails is better than one that lies.

The indexes are positions in items, not in the rendered window — in pagination mode the page offset is already added, so dragging the first row of page 2 reports oldIndex: 10, not 0.

The drag interaction

Row dragging is the same pointer-based controller as column dragging, turned on its side: a ghost with the row’s first cell, a live preview where the rows it passes slide aside and it slides into the gap, edge auto-scroll for long lists, and Escape to cancel. It works the same with a mouse, a pen and a finger, and honours prefers-reduced-motion.

Options

The handle’s accessible name comes from labels.reorderRow — see localization.