Table: Add indeterminate checkbox state support for select-all header

[rhamilto]

What is the issue?

PatternFly's Table (and DataView Table) components do not support indeterminate checkbox state for the select-all header checkbox, despite this being recommended in the PatternFly bulk selection design guidelines.

Expected behavior:
The select-all checkbox in the table header should support three states:

• Unchecked - no items selected

• Indeterminate (dash/minus icon) - some items selected

• Checked - all items selected

Current behavior:
The ThSelectType interface only supports isSelected: boolean, which means the checkbox can only be checked or unchecked. When some (but not all) items are selected, the checkbox appears unchecked, which doesn't properly reflect the selection state to users.

Steps to reproduce

1. Create a table with selectable rows using the select prop on Th
2. Select some (but not all) rows
3. Observe that the header checkbox remains unchecked, even though some items are selected

Code example

// Current interface (v6.4.2)
export interface ThSelectType {
    onSelect?: OnSelect;
    isSelected: boolean;  // Only supports true/false, no indeterminate
    isHeaderSelectDisabled?: boolean;
    isDisabled?: boolean;
    props?: any;
}

Proposed solution

Add support for indeterminate state to ThSelectType:

export interface ThSelectType {
    onSelect?: OnSelect;
    isSelected: boolean;
    isIndeterminate?: boolean;  // NEW: Support for partial selection state
    isHeaderSelectDisabled?: boolean;
    isDisabled?: boolean;
    props?: any;
}

The implementation would need to:

4. Update the ThSelectType interface to include isIndeterminate?: boolean
5. Update the selectable decorator to pass indeterminate state to the checkbox
6. Update SelectColumn to set the checkbox's indeterminate property via ref

Related issues

• Add indeterminate checkbox to table header #3648 - Original request (closed as wontfix due to BulkSelect recommendation)

• improvement(Table): implement indeterminate checkbox state #3909 - PR implementing this feature (closed)

Why this is still needed

While BulkSelect in the toolbar is the recommended pattern, there are valid use cases for table-only selection:

7. Tables without toolbars
8. Compact UIs where toolbar space is limited
9. Consistency with PatternFly design guidelines that show indeterminate state for table headers

Product and version

• @patternfly/react-table: 6.4.2

• User project: OpenShift Console (using PatternFly DataView)

Type

Enhancement

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Jira Issue: PF-4099

[coderabbitai]

🔗 Related PRs

#12140 - feat(TreeView): add support for disabled TreeViewListItems [merged]
#12239 - fix: update ToggleGroup examples to properly toggle options [merged]
#12287 - feat(Table): update isPlain to apply no-plain when false [merged]
#12348 - feat(Table): support dynamic sticky styling [merged]
#12374 - feat(ToggleGroup): added full width variant [merged]

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[rhamilto]

cc: @nicolethoen, we can discuss this at office hours on Wed May 6, but I wanted to go ahead and get this on your radar.