Xceed Grid for WinForms v4.3 Documentation
Welcome to Xceed Grid for WinForms v4.3 / Features of Xceed Grid for WinForms
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    Features of Xceed Grid for WinForms
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    .NET Technology 

    • Written entirely in managed C# code (source code included through a Blueprint subscription) 
    • Object-oriented design created specifically for version 4 of the .NET framework.  (New in 3.9)

    • Supports Microsoft Active Accessibility 2.0 

    • Comprehensive documentation fully integrated into Visual Studio .NET 

    • All error handling works through .NET exception classes 

    • CLS compliant (Common Language Specification)   

    • Does not use unsafe blocks for minimal permission requirements 

    • Fast loading object with efficient memory usage 

    • Optimized drawing code for fast display, scrolling and resizing 

    • Includes plenty of VB.NET and C# samples 

    Unique Innovations

    • Reporting engine built right into the grid. End-users can generate, customize, export and print reports right from applications built with Xceed Grid for WinForms. Developers can add this powerful functionality in just minutes.  

    • A complete suite of cell editors is built right into the grid. The editors are unique in that they are modular, so developers can easily create new, more complex editors as needed, with little additional effort. These cell editors are also usable as regular controls outside the grid, for a more dynamic and consistent UI across the entire application. 

    • The only true design-time WYSIWYG editor in a grid component. You can truly configure your grid right on the form without a configuration dialog or wizard. Set up your headers & footers, columns, grouping, master/detail views, insertion rows, styles etc. quicker and faster than with any other grid. 

    • XP look & feel including XP themes that can automatically adjust to the user's current theme and that can even work on non-XP systems 

    • Exclusive ability to assign any Windows Forms control as a cell editor or cell viewer. Not limited only to custom controls created specifically for use in a grid. Use any VS.NET control or any of the wide variety of publicly available .NET controls 

    • All of the grid's classes are inheritable and documented so developers can easily extend the grid's functionality as needed. Sample applications demonstrating how to extend the grid are included 

    • Every visual element displayed by the grid is a distinct object that behaves like a separate control. Each element, including cells, rows, row selectors, header bars, etc. receives its own mouse, keyboard and paint events and can be replaced by custom objects 

    • Sharp looking Hierarchical Master/Detail view that is so flexible the grid can be used as a powerful bound or unbound TreeView control with limitless levels and sub-items 

    • A variety of specialized row, cell and manager objects allow you to combine text and graphics anywhere on the grid for total control over the display 

    • Offers two ways to perform custom painting of visual elements: add extra painting code to a grid element's paint event or inherit and override a visual element for complete control over the way it is drawn

    True WYSIWYG design-time editor

    • Completely set up the grid's visual elements and configure their appearance directly on your form without the use of a separate wizard or custom property editor – just click on an element to view and edit its properties in the property editor. 

    • Select or multi-select grid elements to view and edit their common properties 

    • Add, copy and delete grid elements as needed 

    • Undo operations 

    • Drag & drop repositioning of grid elements 

    • Resize, rearrange and sort columns, resize rows 

    • Create, edit, delete, expand and collapse groups 

    • Create, edit, delete, expand and collapse master/detail views 

    • Create alternating row styles for two or more data rows in the main grid or in master/detail views 

    • Easy access to event-handling code of any particular grid element 

    • Style previewer allows you to base your grid's look on a predefined grid style

    Seamless bound and unbound support

    • Display, edit and work with bound data, unbound data or a combination of both simultaneously 

    • Detail views in a Master/Detail grid configuration can also be bound, unbound or both 

    • Same programming model whether you deal with bound or unbound data 

    • Can now be bound directly to an array of simple types such as String, Decimal, DateTime, TimeSpan, Guid or Primitive (e.g., SByte, Byte, Int32, etc.) and will show the value of those types in one column  

    • Automatically obtains and synchronizes bound data from any .NET source including Jagged Arrays, any object that implements IListSource or IList and any ADO.NET DataSet, DataTable, DataView or DataViewManager object 

    • Unbound data is obtained and synchronized directly from your application through events

    Major Features

    • UI virtualization for faster loading time and decreased memory use (New in version 3.6)

    • Full Windows Vista support

    • Support for fixed columns 

    • SummaryRow class displays sums or the results of 14 supported statistical functions and can be placed anywhere in the grid (headers, footers, group headers, group footers, etc.) 

    • Can now hide the focus rectangle of the grid    

    • Can custom paint the focus rectangle   

    • When the grid's dock style is set to DockStyle.Fill, a GripperPosition can be set to reserve space for the resizing gripper 

    • Outlook-style automatic row grouping 

    • Custom grouping allows your code to group together rows by defining your own conditions 

    • Logical, easy to use hierarchical Master/Detail views 

    • Master/Detail views support multiple detail views per row or level 

    • Sort one or multiple columns according to any criteria 

    • Scroll grid's view to any cell, row, group or column 

    • Improved sorting, display, and scrolling speed. Now scrolls faster than Microsoft's grid. 

    • Single-click edit mode allows entering edit mode and activating items such as check, text and combo boxes with one click 

    • Display customizable cell or row-level errors. Can display tooltips, blink cell backgrounds, show the standard error icon, etc.  

    • Powerful, built-in input validation capabilities. Users of the grid can use these input validation capabilities on controls outside the grid as well. 

    • Real-time scrolling and always synchronized scroll bars 

    • Detail grids do not display a second set of scrollbars and also stay in view when horizontally scrolling the parent grid 

    • Detail grids can be independent or can automatically synchronize with each other so that they all have the same columns, column order and configurations, sorting and grouping 

    • Ability to change each individual cell's formats and styles    

    • "New item" line allows end user to quickly enter data and insert a new row item in the grid 

    • Fixed, non-scrolling header and footer regions 

    • Print and print preview including ability to print a range of pages 

    • Print and print preview 

    • Display a background image under any visual grid element with optional alpha blending 

    • A variety of built-in cell viewers to properly display the values of cells with specific data types 

    • Intercept, parse and modify data being synchronized with the database from the grid 

    • Full support for mouse, keyboard and drag & drop events on any visual grid element 

    • Every grid element includes its own tag property for custom user data 

    • Groups have their own completely extensible visual margin element 

    • Interactive, hierarchical "Group By" row allows users to easily define their own groups and master/detail relationships 

    • Stylesheets with information about grid's visual elements such as colors, fonts, background images, borders and styles 

    • Load a grid's visual configuration from one of the predefined stylesheets or from your own custom stylesheet 

    • Visible, invisible and patterned grid lines and master/detail relationship lines 

    • Extensible cell row, cell-less row, column, group, detail grid and other objects that you can fully customize    

    • Grid elements can be read-only to prevent any portion of the grid from being edited 

    • Ability to automatically change a row's height to fit the contents of the largest cell 

    • Easy manipulation of the grid's current row 

    • Query which section of a grid a row is in 

    • Supports regional settings including numbers, money type, dates, etc. 

    • Supports form localization 

    • Plenty of meaningful edit events for both rows or cells 

    • Built in Bitmap column data type makes it a snap to display bitmaps in a column 

    • Grid can pre-generate a list of columns from a type  

    • Ability to hide the (+/-) symbol on desired DataRows 

    • Data filtering capabilities

    Gradient maps and interactive visual styles  

    • Windows Vista-like gradient maps with support for transparency to create the illusion of light and shadows, and smooth surfaces, on the parts of the grid to which a GradientMap is applied.

    • Interactive visual styles that let the grid or specific parts of the grid react to the end-user: HotVisualStyle, SelectionVisualStyle, InactiveSelectionVisualStyle, and ErrorVisualStyle. 

    Excel export

    • Export grid data to XML spreadsheet files (directly or via a stream) that can then be opened in Microsoft Excel. 

    • Control the appearance of exported spreadsheets: column header style, how detail grids and cell data are displayed, ability to export the style of the GridControl. 

    • Define custom styles for spreadsheets. 

    • Events for every step of the spreadsheet export and for changes in the various properties of the Excel exporter are provided. 

    • Classes that give you precise control over individual XMLSS attributes for future extensibility and tweaking are also provided.

    Reporting

    • Instant reports: Instantly provide your application's users with the power to print, preview and export customized reports right from Xceed Grid for WinForms. Because they are built-in, Xceed Grid's reporting capabilities eliminate the need for you to acquire, learn and implement a separate reporting solution with your application. 

    • Exporting: Export reports to PDF, HTML, Multi-page TIFF and JPEG. 

    • Vector-based printing: Unlike the printing capabilities of other grids, which send the actual grid mostly in bitmap form to the printer, Xceed Grid for WinForms' reporting engine generates a new layout and sends vector-based data to the printer. This results in professional-looking reports that scale to the printer's resolution instead of looking like someone used the "print screen" key. 

    • Ready for end-users: With only a single line of code, developers can enable Xceed Grid for WinForms' built-in, user-friendly "Generate Report" and "Customize Report Style" dialogs, allowing end-users to "skin" their reports before printing or exporting them, or to create their own customized report stylesheets. Settings in the Generate Report dialog can be persisted as of version 3.1. 

    • Flexibility for end-users: End-users can configure the printed appearance of all report elements, select colors and fonts, add images, determine which data fields to print, define field widths, add lines, customize the report header and footer areas, and more. 

    • Programmatic control: The grid's Report classes allow developers to programmatically generate, print, export and extensively customize reports to a level even deeper than what's available in the end-user forms. 

    • Load/save as XML: Stylesheets can be loaded and saved as XML files, either programmatically or through the built-in end-user forms. 

    • Custom headers/footers: Place images and text in page headers and/or footers, with macros for page number, report title, and a variety of date and time formats. 

    • Column formatting: Choice of either multi-line layout or squeeze layout when there are too many fields to fit on a page. Multi-line layout wraps a row's cells over two or more lines, and squeeze layout vertically stretches cells, wrapping only their contents. 

    • Page spanning: If there are too many fields to fit on one page, the fields can span two or more pages. 

    • Summary row: New extensible summary row object for the grid includes 14 types of built-in statistical functions such as sum, running sum, count and average. This row can be placed at the bottom of each page, at the bottom of each groups, at the top, or anywhere that makes sense for your report. 

    • Repeat on each page: Any row can be repeated on each page, such as column header rows, group header rows and summary rows. 

    • Keep together: Ability to prevent splitting groups over two pages if possible. 

    • Insert page breaks: Insert a page break before and/or after any row or group. 

    • Grid lines: Add horizontal line types below or above any row, header, group or summary cell. 

    • Print selected fields: Select which fields are printed in reports and specify their widths. 

    • Customizable forms: The source code and instructions for customizing the end-user forms is included, allowing developers to customize the forms to match their application's look and feel.

    Is there a feature you think would be indispensable in the grid that is not in the list? Send us your comments!