The DataGrid control

You use code in the above event handlers when a new record is being added or updated in the UI. For example, if a new record is updated and you want to notify a customer, this will be the event where you will write the notification functionality. The xamDataGrid control provides some advanced filtering options.

The DataGridRow has a ValidationErrorTemplate which defines the appearance of this indicator. With the example given below, the exclamation mark is rendered within a red circle in order to give it a more striking appearance. Also, a tooltip is defined that displays the validation error message.

Key Features

The first .NET DataGrid control, released by Microsoft with .NET 1.0 for Windows Forms and bundled with Visual Studio, took tabular data and displayed it onscreen in the form of rows and columns. It had basic designer configuration support and included paging, sorting, and updating support, all of which required writing code. To determine when a user finishes editing a bound item, we https://traderoom.info/displaying-data-in-tables-with-wpf-s-datagrid/ need to delve a little deeper into the binding mechanism itself. Typically, an object implementing this interface would return to its state at the point when the BeginEdit method was called as a response to the CancelEdit method being invoked. However, in this instance, we are not really concerned about being able to cancel edits; all we really need to know is when the user has finished editing a row. This is indicted when the DataGrid invokes EndEdit on our bound item.

Adding a DataGrid to the XAML

Advanced filtering provides a UI interface to help users build filter expressions without the need to learn yet another syntax. A typical rich data-driven Windows client app includes a backend database and a front-end client UI. The app connects to a database, reads the database, displays records in data controls, and implements CRUD operations. The app may also include some advanced UI operations such as sorting, searching, filtering, multiple views, and data export. Display features help the user read and understand the data more quickly and efficiently.

You may disable this feature by setting CanUserSortColumns property to false. The following code snippet sets CanUserSortColumns properties to false. Each row in the DataGrid is bound to an object in the data source and each column in the DataGrid is bound to a property of the data source objects. Xceed DataGrid for WPF features rich in-place editing with a full complement of flexible, themed, and themable editor controls for all kinds of data types. Provides all the mouse and keyboard interactivity necessary for efficient data entry.

1. You can even sort records on multiple columns by holding the control key (Ctrl).
2. However, it should be noted that the validation support for the WPF DataGrid is currently a bit patchy.
3. In this article, we discuss the evolution of the .NET datagrid, the top features of a WPF datagrid, and how to use a datagrid in your WPF application code.
4. Every datagrid control automatically generates columns for each field and comes with basic editing and sorting features out of the box.
5. The default style requires you to customize its appearance from the get-go.
6. If you have any questions, feel free to open an issue or contact us at

Building great looking fully-functional complex data-driven applications is a time-consuming affair. Using third-party controls to build the complex functionality your app needs can save you a ton of time. When designing reusable component libraries, there is a limit to the number of features you should add because nobody wants application bloat (where only a small percentage of the features are used). The solution is to break out specialized features into separate libraries. For .NET datagrids, this includes specialized grids that look and feel like Microsoft Excel, as well as Microsoft Project (GanttViews) and Power BI (Pivot Tables). After you’ve customized your displayed columns, you still receive all the same editing and sorting features out of the box.

Read the Documentation about how to use these features.The API Documentation describes the global API for DGX. This project has adopted the code of conduct defined by the Contributor Covenant to clarify expected behavior in our community.For more information see the .NET Foundation Code of Conduct. If you have any questions, feel free to open an issue or contact us at

Industry’s Best WPF Datagrid Control

I set the Name property of the xamDataGrid to “xamDataGridControl”. Once the layout is reset, you will see the xamDataGrid takes the entire design surface. You may also notice the Height and the Width properties of the xamDataGrid are set to a specific height and width based on the designer. Now right click on the xamDataGrid control and under Layout, click Reset All, so the xamDataGrid gets the entire view. In Toolbox, you should see Infragistics 17.2 WPF category and all controls loaded below.

1. When a new row or changes to an existing row is committed to a DataTable, constraints are checked (e.g., nullable columns, unique constraints) and an exception thrown if they are violated.
2. While WPF includes a basic DataGrid, it often lacks the advanced features and flexibility required for complex enterprise applications.
3. Despite being considered an upgrade from the Windows Forms datagrid, the WPF DataGrid has always felt like it was missing some features.
4. All database synchronisation logic is performed by handling event from this bound collection; therefore, there is no WPF DataGrid specific code.
5. Now, you can use all of these controls like any other WPF control by dragging and dropping them to a window or simply typing XAML manually.

You can improve the readability of the raw data with cell formatting, merging, and column bands. The table below shows how the top (built-in) display features stack up against a third-party datagrid, like FlexGrid. For ASP.NET technologies, we have shifted to ASP.NET Core, Razor Pages, Blazor, and MVC. Surprisingly, these newer web frameworks do not have any native .NET datagrid control. The reason is that these libraries heavily depend on JavaScript more than server-side C# code, so the .NET team has left it up to developers to acquire their own UI libraries.

While these may not be “built-in” the same way as WinForms, they are fairly easy to implement, given the nature of the platform. We’ve denoted the “fairly-easy-to-implement” features with a green check in the table above. To see how these features compare to the Windows Forms DataGridView, check out our previous blog, The Definitive Guide to .NET C# Datagrids.

This article has no explicit license attached to it but may contain usage terms in the article text or the download files themselves. If in doubt please contact the author via the discussion board below. The final example is just a demonstration of the type of styling that can be applied to a WPF DataGrid. We have all the usual suspects, rounded glass effect tabs for column headings, grouping with a customised Expander template, mouse-over highlighting, etc. You can also create custom themes or modify existing ones using WPF styles and templates.