Quickest way to add a DataGrid to an MVC.NET app: ASP.NET AJAX or jQuery?

Question

I have an ASP.NET MVC application which uses plain HTML. I quickly need to add tabs and a datagrid to it. I've been evaluating ASP.NET AJAX and jQuery, but am running out of time to make a decision.

If I needed to add these 2 features quickly, how should I proceed? ASP.NET AJAX or jQuery?

Answer 1

If you are adding a grid to MVC, your best bet is JQuery. The ASP.NET DataGrid is not going to work with MVC, because MVC doesn't support postbacks. The ASP.NET AJAX tabs may not work either.

Here is a plugin for the tabs:

http://stilbuero.de/jquery/tabs_3/

And here is a plugin for the Grid:

http://www.trirand.com/blog/

If you want to roll-your-own server-side GridView control for MVC, see here:

http://stephenwalther.com/blog/archive/2008/06/25/asp-net-mvc-tip-9-create-a-gridview-view-user-control.aspx

There is also a Grid Component in MVCContrib:

http://mvccontrib.codeplex.com/Wiki/View.aspx?title=Grid&referringTitle=Home

jQuery UI Extensions for ASP.NET MVC contains tabs:

http://jmvcui.codeplex.com/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=33636