Interface Design Question

Question

I asked this question a while back and basically the project almost consists of reproducing excel in the browser. We want people to input data in an excel-like way. The question i have is, what is the best control to use? Should i use a regular table, and then append columns to it, or should i use a datagrid and flip it XtoY? What approach would you take?

Thanks for any help.

Answer 1

Option 1: Check out the Silverlight option to develop your application. And it had a good Excel like DataGrid which is rendered at the Browser lever and you can have async calls to server at any point of time you want to persit a change.

Option 2: There are many datagrids available in WPF and you can get a high performance application using .NET3.5, and it is possible to host this as XBAP application.

Option 3: Typical ASP.NET with AJAX enabled Datagrid

Answer 2

Unless you have a TON of development time, don't try to do it yourself. Try a 3rd party control like Telerik or ComponentOne. None will probably have every feature you wish for, but you should be able to find one that is close enough.

Answer 3

I'd recommend ExtJS for an editable data grid with an AJAX data source. ExtJS is a bit bulky but very flexible.

Answer 4

The Farpoint Spread control emulates Excel grids pretty well, you can even code formulas behind it. It does cost money though

Answer 5

Maybe the new Datagrid that is in the wpf toolkit on codeplex has what you need. This datagrid can be templated and style the way you need it.

Answer 6

Check out SpreadsheetGear. It's a drop in control that mimics (and works with) Excel for .Net. I've seen it used well for both display and back-end calculations.