Matt Dotson of Microsoft has a good article on editing multiple rows at once using the GridView.  Of particular interest is that he implements this (in C#) by creating a server control, derived from GridView.  It's kind of fun to see the same concepts from ASP.NET 1.x resurface with new, cleaner 2.0 solutions.

--Marcie

• Word to the wise:  Ken talks about some very annoying GridView behavior when you change the columns for your SqlDataSource.
• Better late than never:  Michele "das Blonde" talks about Eval() and late binding.
• So that's how you do that:  Ryan has a piece on retrieving GridView cell contents during an edit.

--Marcie

I just finished reading eXtreme .NET, Introducing XP Techniques to .NET Developers by Dr. Neil Roodyn. It's a great overview for those new to Extreme Programming, and who want to see how to apply it to .NET.  Even if you don't want to, or can't implement all of the XP practices right away, everything in this book is worth trying at least once over the course of a project (or at least, over the course of your career).

 Topics covered in the book include:

As a fan of NUnit, I'm particularly excited about all the unit testing functionality built in to the VS 2005 IDE via Team Systems.  Even an ASP.NET UI becomes easy to test now with the Web Test Recorder.

Read all about Web Tests on MSDN.  (spotted via Andrew Stopford)

--Marcie

I've added 3 new resources to my GridView Articles page today:

• A Java Evangelist's take on ASP.NET and GridViews, compared with JSF
• GridView Webcast by Ken Getz -- though he does use the evil SqlDataSource, a nice introduction to the ASP.NET GridView.  Also covers master-detail relationships.
• A GridView blog post -- nice coverage of parameters

If you run across (or write!) any GridView resources that I'm missing, please email me.

Also if you want to subscribe to just the new GridView resources that I add (and not my random babblings), I'll mark them all with the "GridView Resources" category:  RSS is here.

--Marcie

Let me start off by saying how much I love the GridView control, which is a great upgrade to my old favorite, the Datagrid control.  And I'm also a big Microsoft-lover, just ask any of my former co-workers, or people who have heard me speak on Microsoft topics, so I'm not trying to Microsoft-bash here.

All the GridView examples I'm seeing so far are based on binding it to one of the new datasource controls, such as the SqlDataSource.  I come from a 3-tier enterprise application kind of a world, and this kind of coding just isn't sitting well with me.  I don't like seeing SQL statements in code-behind, and I sure don't like seeing them in the ASPX.  I'm a big fan of the server control model in general, and I'm all about doing things declaratively when possible (and appropriate).  I even like making custom server controls -- I get a happy feeling when code is tidy and reusable, but I can't seem to get excited about SqlDataSource.

I can understand the ASP.NET Team wanting the feature in order to compete with ColdFusion, where everything is tag-based (SQL queries are just a <CFQUERY> tag).  I worked with a client a few years ago who was moving some functionality from ColdFusion to ASP.NET, and there was some whining that ASP.NET "couldn't do" these handy things that CF could.  Maybe now Macromedia will take this off their site.

And maybe SqlDataSource is suitable for coders who were used to drag-and-drop data access in .NET, and actually used all that (clunky) data access code VS 2003 generated.  For you, SqlDataSource may be an improvement.  And rank beginners or hobbyists, go wild with it.

But for the rest of us, developers creating real-world, serious applications, I can't see using SqlDataSource.  I'm more of a custom objects kind of girl, so I can see using the ObjectDataSource and binding that to a GridView, but I think it's possible to get a little too declarative with some of these new controls.  So article authors, book authors, and presenters:  please show at least some GridView examples that would be appropriate for an n-tier app, and not just a Hello World, demo-candy app.  Thanks!

--Marcie

No, not that kind of web design, the design of spider webs.  See what caffeine (and other drugs) did to the brain of a poor spider.

One thing that is tripping up some people who are upgrading their VS 2003 Datagrid code to use the VS 2005 GridView is that invisible columns can no longer be used for passing data around.  Polita Huff explains the reasoning behind that change (for security reasons) here.

There are (at least) 2 workarounds for this issue, if you've depended on this functionality in the past.

1) If you're using invisible column data before a PostBack to determine something, say, during the ItemDataBound event, you can just use the DataItem property of the Item you're working with.

Old code:

If CType(e.Item.Cells(7).Text, Boolean) Then
   e.Item.Cells(3).Text = "Owner"
Else
   e.Item.Cells(3).Text = "Not an Owner"
End If

Change to:

Dim drv As System.Data.DataRowView = CType(e.Item.DataItem, System.Data.DataRowView)
If CType(drv("IsOwner"), Boolean) Then
   e.Item.Cells(3).Text = "Owner"
Else
   e.Item.Cells(3).Text = "Not an Owner"
End If

2) If you need that invisible data after a PostBack, use the new DataKeyNames property of the GridView (similar to DataKeyField in ASP.NET 1.1, but it now supports multiple columns).  Note that when you use DataKeyNames, the page will automatically decide to encrypt your ViewState (ControlState) to help protect those values, as it assumes your primary key data is potentially secure information.

-- Marcie

Microsoft has come come out with an Upgrade Guide for moving to VS2005

Official Summary: Avoid pitfalls in the upgrading process with these best practices for converting Web projects in Visual Studio 2005. (14 printed pages)

GridViewGirl Summary:  Try it.  If you get errors, fix them. 

That's pretty much all the article says, and that's all you really need to know.  Oh, and backup first.

"If the application you are converting is of reasonable size and has several Web projects and additional projects, such as class libraries, in a single Visual Studio solution, it is possible to encounter issues during migration. Be prepared to spend the better part of a day completing the entire process. The steps and guidance provided in this article can help an informed user to migrate most applications of medium complexity."

I just got done upgrading an app "of reasonable size", and their time estimate was about right.  Most of the issues I encountered weren't covered by this article though.  More on that soon...

--Marcie

When VS 2002 was first coming out, I was a Classic ASP w/VB6 COM developer, used to doing the ASP part of my work in TextPad, so I started off doing all of my ASP.NET in TextPad as well.  It was painful for a while, but it did help me (force me) to learn all the syntax the hard way, using the Class Browser, Reflector, and MSDN.  It was fun to see the look of horror on the faces of my audience in my early Datagrid presentations, where I presented using TextPad as well.  Finally I switched over to using VS2002/2003 as I worked with clients who were using it, and while I didn't feel like I *needed* the Intellisense, it was nice to have, and sometimes sped up the process, since I didn't have to hit the references as much. 

Now it's two years later and I'm hooked on Intellisense like a crack addict.  I'll be typing an email or a post on the ASP.NET forums, and if I type System (DOT) and nothing comes up, I feel naked and alone.  Or in VS.NET, if Intellisense lags a little bit (because I'm running 94 other apps at the same time, and sucking down RAM), I'll type the period and wait for that next name to popup, even though I could have typed it myself while I sat there and waited.  Plus I email a good bit from my Pocket PC, which has its own flavor of Intellisense, guessing (sometimes poorly) which word I'm choosing next.

So imagine my giddiness today when working on a VS 2005 project, and see the Intellisense delight appear in the Watch window:

It also looks like Intellisense got better in the ASPX/ASCX files as well.  Intellisense everywhere, Intellisense for all!

Now I'm waiting for dasBlog Intellisense to guess what I want type for the rest of this post...

--Marcie

Welcome to GridViewGirl.com, your new resource for all things related to the <asp:GridView> control in ASP.NET 2.0.

Check out the listing of GridView Articles, in particular, Scott Mitchell's GridView examples.  This one is thorough (think: Extensive Examination of the Datagrid).  When Scott says "extensive", he means extensive -- the GridView "article" is 122 printed pages.

Also if you're new to ASP.NET 2.0 (VS 2005), check out the QuickStart tutorials, particulary the GridView reference.

Soon I'll be adding a GridView FAQ to the site, and a Book Reviews section focusing on the GridView chapters of ASP.NET 2.0 books.

-- Marcie