Choosing the correct grid from our controls can be important when displaying and manipulating data, take this example:
Let’s say I write an application that analyses the postings made by the Devexpress evangelists. If I store such data in a database and wish to view and manipulate the data, I could choose to use the XtraGrid. Having bound the control to a summary view of the data, in the normal way, and running the application, I see the following:
As you can see, by default, because we are dealing with summary details, everything is a bit of a mish mash. There are mixed dates in the first column and mixed up names in the second column. To try and make things a little better we can group our data, either on “Date”:
or on “Name”:
Both of these are an improvement on the original but still do not make the data very clear. If we swap the XtraGrid for the XtraPivotGrid and again bind to the summary data we get:
Now, if we drag and drop the “Date” onto the row fields area:
and the “Name” onto the column fields area:
and finally, the “Number of Posts” onto the data items area:
then we can get a nice, clear view of all of our data.
So, as you can see, whatever your grid needs, at Devexpress we’ve got it covered. :-)