ExtGridView

Introduction

This article presents a control which displays hierarchical data using the ASP.NET GridView control. This extension of the GridView control can also be used to display extended data details for a data row.

Using the code

The ExtGridView control can be used just like the regular ASP.NET GridView control (since it's inherited from GridView). TheExtGridView control will take care to displaying the expand/collapse button and also shows or hides the nested content.

But how should the nested content be added to the grid? The idea is simple. Because each row can have some related nested content, theExtGridView control assumes that this content is placed in the last column of the grid. So the content from the last column will not be displayed as a regular column in the grid, but rather as the content which is displayed when the expand button is clicked.

In the sample project, the Customers table from the Northwind database is displayed using the ExtGridView control. The customer's orders are displayed in another ExtGridView as nested content. Finally, the Order details are displayed as nested content for the rows in the Orders grid. If it's necessary, when running the sample project, please modify the connection string in web.config.

Please notice that instead of the grid from the last column, you can place any other ASP.NET control (or HTML code) inside theItemTemplate and the control will be displayed as nested content.

Copyright : http://www.codeproject.com/KB/custom-controls/extgridview.aspx

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