General Features

Essential Grid supports all standard grid control features. In addition, Essential Grid possesses unique features such as full support for Undo / Redo and OLE Drag and Drop.

Cell Styles	Covered Cells
Banner Cells	Merged Cells
Alphablending and Background Bitmaps	GDI+ Drawing
GridControl Skins	Property Grid Integration
Virtual Mode	Resize Rows and Columns
Freeze Rows or Columns	Hide Rows or Columns
Grid List Control and Autocomplete DropDown List	OLE DND and Clipboard Support
Record Navigation Bar	Split Views
MDI Support	Keyboard Interface
Mouse Operations	Serialization
Excel Export	Printing

Cell Types

Essential Grid supports several cell types including Header Text, Static, Text Box, Check Box, NumericUpDown, Push Button, and ComboBox. In addition, users may derive additional cell types from our classes.

Static Text	Header Text
Check Box	Push Button
NumericUpDown	ComboBox
Color Picker	Month Calendar
Grid Drop Down	Currency Cells
MaskEdit	Password Cell
ProgressBar Cell	RadioButton Cell
RichText Cell	WebBrowser Cell
UITypeEditor cell	InPlace Calendars
DateTimePicker Cells	PictureBox Cell
Slider Cell	XHTML Cell
Cell Buttons	Formula Cell
ButtonEdit cells	Chart Cell
Grid In Cells

Cell Attributes

Essential Grid is implemented using a unique cell-oriented architecture that allows intricate customization at the cell level.

Cell Interior	Cell Base Style
Cell Text Color	Cell Borders
Cell Types	Cell Text Alignment
Cell Text Orientation	Cell Format
Cell Choice List	Cell Image List
Data Source	ShowButtons
Read Only	Cell Auto Size Mode
Cell Wrap Text Mode	Cell Allow Enter Mode

Data Binding

DataBinding to the grid is as simple as it gets with a single line of code. The grid supports all kinds of "lists" from IList derived types to ADO.NET DataSource instances. The grid automatically discovers the schema of the datasource at runtime, including any relations setup between tables in a DataSource and renders the grid contents automatically. You can of course, alter the grid's schema to hide columns, include unbound columns, etc. While by default, the grid pulls all the records to the client, irrespective of the number of records displayed in the page, optionally you can use "Pass Through Grouping" to overcome this restriction and selectively query records from the data source based on the grid's current view.

Data Sources	Custom Collections
Generic Collection	DateTime Boolean CellTypes
Image Cells	Hierarchies
Flexible Hierarchy	Drop Lists Foreign Key
FilterBar	Multiple Rows Per Record
Multiple Header Cells	Conditional Formatting
Pass Through Grouping	LINQ Support

Formula Support

Essential Grid supports Excel-like formulas on a cell by cell basis. It supports cross sheet references and named ranges, and you can easily add custom functions to its function library.

Formula support celltype	Named Range Support
Cross sheet references	Formula Function Library

Grid Grouping Support

Essential Grid offers a very flexible support for grouping both flat and hierarchical datasources. It supports expressions fields, filters, multi-column sorting, grouping, nested tables / hierarchies, and custom summaries.

Grouping Support	Custom Grouping
ADO.NET Relations	Hierarchical Display
Foreign Key Relations	Summaries
Filters	Expression Fields
Sorting	Group By Columns
Preview Rows	Stacked Multiheaders
Base Styles	Custom Cell Ranges
Error Indicator	GridGroupingControl Skins
AddNew Record	Parent Records Synchronization
Record Categories Synchronization	Drag Column Headers
Multiple Rows and Columns per Record	Navigation through keys
Serialization of Cell Data	Serialization of Schema
Excel Export	Grid Optimizations

MS Office Simulation

Essential Grid simulates popular Microsoft applications. Users will find its interface to be friendly and familiar.

Cell Floating Mode	Accelerated Scrolling
Intelli-Mouse Scrolling	Multilevel Undo Redo
Shared Scrollbars	Excel Simulation
Access Simulation	Workbook of Grids
Scrolltips Thumbtracking	Excel Grid Clipboard Support

MFC like Features

Essential Grid supports several MFC-like features. These features are beneficial to any application, and they also make porting from MFC to Windows Forms much easier.

Document View Support

Dynamic Splitters