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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Source Datagrid Control

Windows DataGridColumns User Controls

Introduction

This article explains how to build some special user controls for DataGrid columns on a Windows application. The special controls are:DataGrid ComboBox, DateTimePicker and Button columns. In a DataGrid, a column style is an object that defines what the column looks and behaves like, including such things as color, font, and the presence of controls that will handle linked field in a database with the use of a ComboBox, a CheckBox and other controls. The .NET Framework includes two types of column-style classes by default: theDataGridTextBoxColumn and DataGridBoolColumn classes. A quantity of jobs you may want to achieve with the Windows FormsDataGrid control are, unexpectedly, more troublesome than you might expect. Principally, this is because the Windows Forms DataGridcontrol is column-based, rather than cell-based. As a result, to attain most tasks, you have to work with the columns, not the cells themselves. Hence the need to create our own set of DataGridColumnStyle objects that define custom column styles for the Windows Forms DataGrid control and add them to the GridColumnStylesCollection. Below is an explanation of how those three user controls might be useful:

DataGrid ComboBox Column Style

Suppose you have a database as shown below:

Student Id Name

Book StudentId BookName DateTime

You have "StudentId", a foreign key to the "Id" field in "Student" table, and another field "BookName". Now, suppose you want to display the data of "Book" on a DataGrid, and don't want to display "StudentId" as integer. In addition, you need to display the name, but any editing would update the "StudentId" field. The first solution would be to create two DataTables with parent-child relation, and write many instructions to display the wanted fields correctly, and update the table as needed. This needs a lot of instructions and design. Another solution would be to use a combo box, with data source as the "Student" table, display member as "Name", and value member as "Id". And any edits would display the new name, but update the "StudentId" field. Using the DataGridComboBoxColumn class is easy to do that, and is added as a column to the DataGrid easily.

DataGrid DateTimePicker Column Style

Let's take the same database example as above. In the table "Book", there's a field "DateTime" with date information. Suppose you want to edit this field in the DataGrid directly. One way is to write the date, in the right format, in the text box column of the DataGrid. This could cause errors if you mistyped the date, or in a different format. Another solution would be to use a DateTimePicker control, and just choose the exact date from the control. Using the DataGridTimePickerColumn allows you to achieve that easily.

DataGrid Button Column Style

You are viewing all rows in the DataGrid. Now, suppose you want to delete a row from the DataSet. A simple way would be to click on a button on this row, and an event is fired to delete the row, then refresh the DataSet. This can be easily done usingDataGridButtonColumn.

Coppyright : http://www.codeproject.com/KB/grid/WindowsDataGridColumns.aspx

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