DataGridView FAQ.doc
DataGridView Control
The DataGridView control is the new grid control for Windows Froms 2.0. It replaces the DataGrid control with an easy to use and extremely customizable grid that supports many of the features that are needed for our customers.
About this document:
This material should not be considered a complete coverage of DataGridView but it tries to capture the high-level features with some depth in specific areas.
This document is divided into about 5 logical sections starting with a feature and structure overview, followed by an overview of built‑in column and cell types. Next is an overview of working with data, followed by an overview of specific major features. Lastly, a “best practice” section concludes the main part of this document.
Most sections contain a “Q & A” section that answers common questions regarding the specific feature or area covered by the section. Note that some questions are duplicated in multiple sections based upon the section relevancy. The question and answers with code samples/snippets are contained in this document’s only appendix to make for a “one-stop shop” of code.
Note that most of the context of this document comes from the DataGridView control documentation presented in MSDN.
Contents
1 What is the DataGridView 4
1.1 Differences between the DataGridView and DataGrid controls 4
1.2 Highlight of features 5
2 Structure of DGV 6
2.1 Architecture Elements 6
2.2 Cells and Bands 6
2.3 DataGridViewCell 6
2.3.1 How a DataGridViewCell works 7
2.4 DataGridViewColumn 9
2.5 DataGridView Editing Controls 9
2.6 DataGridViewRow 10
3 Out of the box column/cell types 11
3.1 DataGridViewTextBoxColumn 11
3.2 DataGridViewCheckBoxColumn 12
3.3 DataGridViewImageColumn 12
3.4 DataGridViewButtonColumn 13
3.5 DataGridViewComboBoxColumn 13
3.5.1 DataErrors and the combo box column 13
3.6 DataGridViewLinkColumn 14
4 Working with Data 15
4.1 Data Entry and Validation Events 15
4.1.1 Order of Validation Events 15
4.1.2 Validating Data 15
4.1.3 Data Entry in the New Row 16
4.2 Working with Null values 19
4.2.1 NullValue 19
4.2.2 DataSourceNullValue 19
4.3 DataError event 20
4.4 Databound modes 21
4.4.1 Unbound 21
4.4.2 Bound 21
4.4.3 Virtual 22
4.4.4 Mixed mode – Bound and Unbound 22
5 Overview of features 24
5.1 Styling 24
5.1.1 The DataGridViewCellStyle Class 24
5.1.2 Using DataGridViewCellStyle Objects 24
5.1.3 Style Inheritance 25
5.1.4 Setting Styles Dynamically 28
5.2 Custom painting 28
5.2.1 Paint Parts 28
5.2.2 Row Pre Paint and Post Paint 29
5.3 Autosizing 30
5.3.1 Sizing Options in the Windows Forms DataGridView Control 30
5.3.2 Resizing with the Mouse 31
5.3.3 Automatic Sizing 32
5.3.4 Programmatic Resizing 33
5.3.5 Customizing Content-based Sizing Behavior 34
5.3.6 Content-based Sizing Options 34
5.4 Selection modes 34
5.4.1 Programmatic Selection 35
5.5 Scrolling 35
5.5.1 Scroll event 35
5.5.2 Scroll bars 35
5.5.3 Scrolling Properties 36
5.6 Sorting 36
5.6.1 Programmatic Sorting 37
5.6.2 Custom Sorting 38
5.7 Border styles 39
5.7.1 Standard Border Styles 39
5.7.2 Advanced Border Styles 39
5.8 Enter-Edit modes 40
5.9 Clipboard copy modes 40
5.10 Frozen columns/rows 41
5.11 Implementing Custom cells and editing controls/cells 41
5.11.1 IDataGridViewEditingControl 42
5.11.2 IDataGridViewEditingCell 42
5.12 Virtual mode 42
5.12.1 Bound Mode and Virtual Mode 42
5.12.2 Supplementing Bound Mode 42
5.12.3 Replacing Bound Mode 43
5.12.4 Virtual-Mode Events 43
5.12.5 Best Practices in Virtual Mode 44
5.13 Capacity 44
6 Best Practices 45
6.1 Using Cell Styles Efficiently 45
6.2 Using Shortcut Menus Efficiently 45
6.3 Using Automatic Resizing Efficiently 45
6.4 Using the Selected Cells, Rows, and Columns Collections Efficiently 46
6.5 Using Shared Rows 46
6.6 Preventing Rows from Becoming Unshared 47
Appendix A – Common Questions and Answers 49
1. How do I prevent a particular cell from being editable? 49
2. How do I disable a cell? 49
3. How do I restrict user from setting focus to a specific cell? 51
4. How do I show controls in all cells regardless of edit? 51
5. Why does the cell text show up with “square” characters where they should be new lines? 51
6. How do I show icon and text in the same cell? 51
7. How do I hide a column? 53
8. How do I prevent the user from sorting on a column? 53
...
Lauviah666