One of the reasons I frequently don't use the datagrid control, opting instead to programetically create an html table, is because the datagrid doesn't seem to be able to do anything with the data other than display it, page through it, and sometimes accept edits.

For example, I have a field in a datatable called txtImage, which holds the location and filename of an image as a varchar. It would be nice, instead of displaying the text of the folder and image name, to display a thumbnail of an image. I am not able to store the actual image in the database for unrelated business reasons.

Does anyone know of a way to implement this in a datagrid, or does this have to be generated manually?

Thanks as always for your feedback.

Aaron

You should convert your DataGrid's columns to a TemplateColumn. Then you can dump whatever you see fit in the ItemTemplate, like an Image control that gets its ImageUrl from the data source:

<asp:TemplateColumn HeaderText="Image">
  <ItemTemplate>
    <asp:Image id="imgWhatever" runat="server" ImageUrl='<%#DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem, "Image")%>' />
  </ItemTemplate>
</asp:TemplateColumn>

Does this help?

Imar
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Imar Spaanjaars
Everyone is unique, except for me.

Hi Imar,

Could you point me to more information on the TemplateColumn control?

Is this the kind of thing where I could also manipulate data before I display it (i.e. use the toShortDateString method on a DateTime field)?

Thanks.

Aaron

Yes, you can. You even have a few options.

First of all, you can just call methods in the databinding, formatting you code directly.

Another alternative is to use ItemCreated or ItemDataBound that fire for each item. Inside those methods, you can retrieve the bound data, and format it in any way you like.

If you search Google for TemplateColumn DataGrid you'll find lots of useful articles.

Here are a few:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...classtopic.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...vercontrol.asp

http://aspnet.4guysfromrolla.com/articles/040502-1.aspx

The last one might take some time; it's part 1 of an 18 part series that gives you a lot of information about the DataGrid.

Imar
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Imar Spaanjaars
Everyone is unique, except for me.