WebGrid.NET Enterprise v3.5

asp:review

WebGrid.NETEnterprise v3.5

InnovativeVisual Data Organizer or Just Another ASP.NET Grid Control?

By Mike Riley

At lastcount, there were more than 30 freeware, shareware, and commercial DataGridcontrols available for ASP.NET - most of which are variants on a common themebased on the original Sheridan Visual Basic 3.0 databound controls from the16-bit Windows client data application days. A handful of the new .NET controlsare polished products, and only a select few are outstanding commercialsolutions, worthy of the money their licenses demands. Intersoft's 3.5 releaseof their WebGrid.NET component is vying for such worthiness, but has a bit morework to do before it can go head to head with its fiercest competitors.

What's Right?

First,as any serious player in the .NET data grid component market knows, featuresare what differentiate one product from another. Intersoft has added more than75 new features to this release, some of which are dazzling. The stand-out thatgenerated the most excitement for me was the new row-rendering engine, capableof treating a subset of cells and rows as a single unit. This makes a hugedifference in the speed of rendering and delivery while adding support forColumnSets and PreviewRow features. The addition of these capabilities providesenormous flexibility when designing complex grids that require dynamicfiltering and unique data displays for the users.

Figure 1: One of the more advancedWebGrid.NET demos is a GUI emulating a Web-based Inbox.

Some ofthe other compelling enhancements include what Intersoft calls theirWebCommonControl architecture, which allows for other Intersoft components,including their WebCombo.NET control, to seamlessly operate within aWebGrid.NET control. Using these two controls together dramatically improvesthe end-user experience, and Intersoft includes a trial version of WebCombo.NETwith the Enterprise Edition. Intersoft has also improved their "OnTheFly"postback sub-architecture and built-in editing, which allows for seamlesspopulation of expanded rows and direct on-page editing, giving a native WindowsForms control feel and response to the display. In fact, there are so many richclient-like features embedded in the product that it has its own end-useronline help for the icons used to control the grid.

Anabundance of other features are potently packed into the control, including thecorrect merging/adoption of multiple CSS design styles into a single, properlyrendered output style, and expandable preview rows similar to those found inOutlook. In addition to the usual grid manipulation, such as moving, resizing,resorting, grouping, etc., WebGrid.NET provides an AutoColumnWidth mode thatautoformats the grid for a much cleaner output, a Localization Manager that customizesand manages multiple language/numerical format outputs, a filter, and UI andaccessibility improvements. It can even export data to Excel, HTML, PDF, PlainText, RTF, TIFF, and XML formats.

Figure 2: Working with the WebGrid.NETcontrol in the VS.NET environment is easy and intuitive.

WebGrid.NETalso supports ComponentOne's DataObjects for hooking up business logic to richUI output. Because ComponentOne has a grid component of their own, it'sinteresting that Intersoft would employ the use of a major competitor'stechnology. Nevertheless, it boosts the interoperability with other .NETserver-side component vendors. In fact, there are many other features includedin the product that surprised me in a positive way. It seems to have almosteverything going for it.

Figure 3: Developers can opt to useWebGrid.NET's bundled end-user documentation to interpret the functionality ofits 20+ icons.

So What's Wrong?

The mostdisappointing limitation with the current release is the component's inabilityto render data for any other client except Internet Explorer 6.0 running on theMicrosoft Windows OS. The major benefit of server-based components is theirability to reconstruct their output to support the diverse range of clients itmight serve. By restricting the client support so dramatically, Intersoft'ssolution is essentially a roll-back to a controlled, tightly coupledclient-server environment - without the deployment overhead. This restricts thecomponents use to intranet environments that can dictate the browser andversion to support.

Figure 4: The WebGrid.NET Designer helps towire up new highly customized DataGrid layouts in minutes.

Althoughmost companies running Windows environments have already standardized onInternet Explorer 6.0 for compatibility and security reasons, migrating such aclient requirements-heavy solution for broader extranet or Internet use isn'tan option. Considering that Intersoft's competitors fully support non-Microsoftbrowsers, this limitation is a major impediment for an otherwise outstandingproduct.

Figure 5: This alert box appears whenattempting to access a WebGrid.NET ASP.NET Web page with a non-IE6 browser.

A fewother minor UI annoyances, such as quirky behaviors when manually resizingcolumns, were present in the version I reviewed, although some of these issueshave been rectified in an update released a few weeks after the initial 3.5version was made public.

Figure 6: The Intersoft online developerlibrary and support areas proactively assure customers that questions, tips,and bugs are addressed and solutions are disseminated as broadly and quickly aspossible.

Conclusion

Intersoft'sWebGrid.NET v3.5 is a powerful yet restricted DataGrid that is only suited forcontrolled intranet environments standardized on Internet Explorer 6.0 orhigher. The constrained platform support allows for a considerably richer andmore Win32 datagrid-like experience, without the ActiveX package deploymentheadaches or security risks. Intersoft's Enterprise offering also compensatesfor this limited platform support by selling their product for less than thecompetition, with an expectation that multi-browser support may be added in thefuture. Nevertheless, I can only recommend the product to ardent Microsoftplatform advocates who can guarantee the control of their client desktopenvironments.

Rating:

Web Site:http://www.intersoftpt.com

Price:Single-developer license, US$799