ASPxGridView

These days, every third-party component developer claimstheir Web grid is fast and efficient but few actually feel that way from auser s perspective. Developer Express is one of the exceptional companies thathave truly delivered on that promise: their ASPxGridView control is speedy onboth the client and the server.

The Competition

ASP.NET s built-in grid controls execute virtually alllogic on the server side. This means lots of postbacks, lots of repetitivequeries, and rebinding. It can also eat a lot of bandwidth and cause terriblyslow performance under all but the simplest of circumstances. This is why third-partygrid controls are so popular; they move much of the data processing to theclient side to improve performance and efficiency.

To do this, most third-party Web grids download mountainsof JavaScript to every user s machine to handle client-side paging and sortingtasks. Being an interpreted language, JavaScript is not known for its speed. Ittakes time for all that code to download and run, and user experience can varygreatly depending on the user s machine and infrastructure.

Many Web grids also utilize AJAXto fetch rows of data in the background to speed up the user s perception ofperformance. This achieves varying degrees of success, depending on such factorsas the user s bandwidth and the size of the underlying set of data. It alsodepends heavily on the developer s ability to handle that data on the server ina way that is optimal for the grid s (and server s) performance. This can be amysterious art, especially because most Web grid companies don t provide muchhelp in that regard. In some cases, these AJAXcalls may be incompatible with common AJAXlibraries, such as Microsoft s ASP.NET AJAX. In other cases, their grid may notwork well with alternative browsers.

Some Web grids are optimized for small sets of data, andsome are optimized for large sets of data but few handle all sizesefficiently.

No Competition

Contrary to the experiences cited above, ASPxGridView hasa small and highly efficient client-side JavaScript library that executesfaster than any other Web grid I ve tried (and I ve tried most of them). UntilI tried this grid, I was truly frustrated that all JavaScript-based gridsexecuted so slowly. I thought it must not be possible to create a fast Web gridwith JavaScript, so I d been looking intently toward future options ... maybeSilverlight would give us a good solution.

Luckily, the developers at Developer Express know whatthey re doing. They ve created optimized script downloads that only transmitthe JavaScripts that the current page needs.

ASPxGridView supports all major browsers, including IE,Netscape, Mozilla, Firefox, Opera, and Safari. However, my testing revealedsome glitches when using the iPhone s version of Safari as the front end.

The Development Experience

When you first drag an ASPxGridView control onto a Web form,the initial experience is similar to dragging a standard ASP.NET GridViewcontrol onto the page; you re prompted with a smart tag (shown in Figure 1) toconnect a data source or configure columns manually.

Figure 1: ASPxGridView has afamiliar design-time experience, presenting a variety of smart tag formattingoptions.

You re also presented with automatic formatting options. Choosingone of the half-dozen included AutoFormat schemes will invoke another promptasking if you d like the grid s image and stylesheet files automatically addedto your project. Denying this prompt will cause the grid to look ugly, so Isuggest you accept it.

Assuming you ve got the right database queries hooked upand your primary keys are configured correctly (which is not necessarily atrivial task), the grid automatically supports updates, inserts, and deletes ifyou choose to enable such features. There are an abundant variety of editingcontrols included for editing each field, and they can be entirely configuredin many useful ways (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: ASPxGridView provides richediting controls and features.

ASPxGridView can be programmed from the server side or theclient side. Fifteen separate client-side events are provided by the grid soyou can insert JavaScript as needed to provide a smooth interaction with therest of the page.

Support System

Developer Express keeps track of your product purchases soyou don t have to. When you return to their Web site after a purchase, you llfind all your purchased software permanently listed so you can re-download it anytimeyou like. Patches and updates are listed in full detail so you can see what hasbeen fixed and what features have been added since the last time you visited.

Deployment is relatively straightforward. The few DLLsused by the grid can be registered in the Global Assembly Cache (GAC) on the Webserver. If you re using a shared host that doesn t allow GAC registrations, youcan deploy the DLLs to the standard bin folder of your Web application. However,under this lower-trust deployment scenario, you surrender the ability to exportfrom ASPxGridView to other formats, such as Excel, PDF, and Rich Text Format(RTF).

The Developer Express website also contains all the otherusual support you d expect from a professional software company, such as an FAQsection, knowledge base, forums, documentation, etc. On top of those standardoptions, Developer Express goes above and beyond with online tutorials andscreencasts for many of their products.

The standard price of ASPxGridView is US $299.99; for anadditional US $50 you get the full C# source code for the grid.

In Conclusion

You no longer need to be constrained by the limitations ofASP.NET's standard GridView control. You can upgrade into a whole new world of Webdevelopment with ASPxGridView. I suggest you download a free evaluation copyand see for yourself which of its many features are most valuable to you andyour Web site.

Steve C. Orr is anASPInsider, MCSD, Certified ScrumMaster, Microsoft MVP in ASP.NET, and authorof the book Beginning ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX by Wrox. He sbeen developing software solutions for leading companies in the Seattlearea for more than a decade. When he s not busy designing software systems orwriting about them, he can often be found loitering at local user groups andhabitually lurking in the ASP.NET newsgroup. Find out more about him at http://SteveOrr.net or e-mail him at mailto:[email protected].

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Web Site: http://www.devexpress.com/Products/NET/WebForms/ASPxGridView/

Price: Startsat US $299.99