Spreadsheet like input facility for ASP MVC

Question

I'm looking for recommendations for a spreadsheet-like input facility to sit in an ASP MVC environment.

The client currently has a large number of very complex interlinked shared spreadsheets (which they are effectively running 90% of their core business from) for collecting and processing information. They wish to move this to a web application and require ASP MVC. They realise that they will not be able to display as much information on screen as they do currently with their spreadsheets, so a 40 x 60 grid should suffice in most cases. Of this they'll be a limited number of cells for data entry that will immediately update other cells in the grid using various spreadsheet-like formula. The grid must be AJAX enabled.

The quality of the user-interface is of primary concern here. As inevitably there will be a certain amount of resistance to move to database/web (and this project is a pilot anyway) the system must be as slick as possible. Almost as important is ease of implementation - the final system will be quite large so the quicker it is possible to configure the grid the better.

Either Open Source or commercial would be fine. HTML/Javascript, Silverlight and Flex implementations can all be considered.

I initially asked a similar question a year ago (it's taken that long for the client to agree the project) but I'm sure options have changed since then and our environment is now better defined.

Answer 1

Check out YUI's datatable, maybe what you need

http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/examples/datatable/dt_cellediting.html

I have used it and its great, very developer friendly and supports pagination.

Answer 2

When asked for a multi-line editable grid, I've done it two ways.

1. Dropped a SL control onto the page. This was incredibly easy.
2. A lot of javascript. Double-clicking a row made a row editable with several textboxes to span the gap. I don't think is what you're looking for, though.

Answer 3

Microsoft Silverlight. It is almost certainly your best bet for a rich line of business application with web deployment. It will allow you to utilise a consistent code base across your back-end and front-end component.

Whilst a number of commercial datagrid packages exist (Telerik, etc), I'd suggest using the default Datagrid component that is available, and understanding fully the databinding and templating options available.

Answer 4

For something quick and easy have a look at JqGrid demos to see if it can do what you want

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

JQuery is already in MVC and being javascript it will work without plugins for the browser. However it may not be powerful enough for what you want in which case you going to need to look at Silver light etc. Could the project not be approached in a more web friendly manor?