What is DataGrid in SilverLight?

{ Published by chandrasekhar - On 6:48 PM - 0 comments }

DataGrid

DataGrid control is one of the most important control in Silverlight to develop Line-of-Business (As per Wiki - Line of business (LOB) is a general term which often refers to a set of one or more highly related products which service a particular customer transaction or business need.) applications and is mostly used to List the records in tabular format.
Apart from listing the records, it also provides option to sort, re-arrange columns, resize columns, edit data etc.

How to list the records in the DataGrid?
    *** Code ***

<grid x:name="LayoutRoot" background="White">
<StackPanel>
<Button x:Name="Button1" Content="FillData" Click="Button1_Click" Height="30" Width="75" Margin="20, 10, 0, 20"/>
<sdk:DataGrid x:Name="DataGrid1" AutoGenerateColumns="True" />
</StackPanel>
</grid>

In the above code, we have a Button control; on click of the button we are executing Button1_Click server side method.
Next, we have DataGrid control with AutoGenerateColumns attribute set to true that automatically generates the columns based on the properties found in the data source.


Code behind
private void Button1_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
FillData();
}
private void FillData()
{
IList<Person> list = new List<Person>();
Person p = new Person
{
Age = 1,
FirstName = "Joe",
LastName = "Elan",
IsActive = true
};
Person p1 = new Person
{
Age = 15,
FirstName = "Mike",
LastName = "Bull",
IsActive = true
};
Person p2 = new Person
{
Age = 51,
FirstName = "Mukul",
LastName = "Alwa",
IsActive = true
};
Person p3 = new Person
{
Age = 31,
FirstName = "Sheo",
LastName = "Narayan",
IsActive = true
};
list.Add(p);
list.Add(p1);
list.Add(p2);
list.Add(p3);
}
public class Person
{
public string FirstName { get; set; }
public string LastName { get; set; }
public int Age { get; set; }
public bool IsActive { get; set; }
}

In the above code snippet, in the Button1_Click method we are calling FillData method. In the FillData method, we have instantiated the Person class and set its value and added to the Generic collection.
At last we have set the ItemsSource of the DataGrid to the generic list collection.

Output



 

How to customize the DataGrid’s columns data?

DataGrid has several column types to customize the look and feel of the DataGrid columns.
DataGridTextColumn
It allows keeping the text field type value in the DataGrid. Sorting of this column is inherited out of the box.
DataGridCheckBoxColumn
It allows keeping the Boolean field type value in the DataGrid. Sorting of this column is inherited out of the box.
DataGridTemplateColumn
It allows keeping type of data that can’t be kept in above two column type, eg. Images, it also allows keeping custom data along with other field type value in the DataGrid. Sorting of this column is NOT inherited out of the box, you need to write your own logic to support sorting of this column.
Code
<sdk:datagrid x:name="DataGrid1" autogeneratecolumns="False" margin="10 10 10 10">
<sdk:DataGrid.Columns>
<sdk:DataGridTemplateColumn Header="Full Name">
<sdk:DataGridTemplateColumn.CellTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal">
<TextBlock Text="{Binding FirstName}" x:Name="t1"/>
<TextBlock Text="{Binding LastName}" x:Name="t2"/>
</StackPanel>
</DataTemplate>
</sdk:DataGridTemplateColumn.CellTemplate>
</sdk:DataGridTemplateColumn>
<sdk:DataGridTextColumn Header="Age" Binding="{Binding Age}"/>
<sdk:DataGridCheckBoxColumn Header="Is Active?" Binding="{Binding IsActive}"/>
</sdk:DataGrid.Columns>
</sdk:datagrid>





In the above code snippet, we have set DataGrid’s AutoGenerateColumns property to false so its column will not be automatically generated based on the properties of the DataSource.
We have used DataGridTemplateColumn with its CellTemplate that let us specify the template for the data in read only mode. We will see how to specify template for edit mode later on. In the CellTemplate, we have specified the DataTemplate for FirstName and LastName (TextBlocks in the StackPanel, you can’t keep TextBlock directly inside the DataTemplate.
To display the Age data, we have specified DataGridTextColumn and to display Active data we have specified DataGridCheckBoxColumn column type.
Code behind
public DataGridCustomColumn()
{
InitializeComponent();
this.Loaded += new RoutedEventHandler(DataGridCustomColumn_Loaded);
}
void DataGridCustomColumn_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
FillData();
}
private void FillData()
{
IList<Person> list = new List<Person>();
Person p = new Person
{
Age = 1,
FirstName = "Joe",
LastName = "Elan",
IsActive = true
};
Person p1 = new Person
{
Age = 15,
FirstName = "Mike",
LastName = "Bull",
IsActive = true
};
Person p2 = new Person
{
Age = 51,
FirstName = "Mukul",
LastName = "Alwa",
IsActive = true
};
Person p3 = new Person
{
Age = 31,
FirstName = "Sheo",
LastName = "Narayan",
IsActive = true
};
list.Add(p);
list.Add(p1);
list.Add(p2);
list.Add(p3);
DataGrid1.ItemsSource = list;
}
public class Person
{
public string FirstName { get; set; }
public string LastName { get; set; }
public int Age { get; set; }
public bool IsActive { get; set; }
} 
In the above code snippet, we have attached DataGridCustomColumn_Loaded method to the Loaded event of the page. In this method we have called FillData.
In the FillData method, we have created a Generic list collection and added Person object and then set the ItemSource property of the DataGrid to the generic list collection.

Output