I am trying to use "Handsontable Grid" in a ASP.NET MVC (Razor) project. Have anyone used it before? Is it possible? Could you please provide some sample as a starting point?
Thank You.
Best Regards.
Yes, but there is really no "real" interaction between Handsontable and MVC.
Handsontable grid is databound to an array. It has no built-in properties where you can set an URL for the plugin to get and post data by itself; you are responsible for handling ajax getting and posting data, as well as marshalling and unmarshalling your json or xml to array.
Javascript performance is crucial for UI responsiveness. Large grid on IE8 may not run well for intense editing. That might not be a real issue since, in my opinion, the real killer feature is cutting and pasting to and from Excel, you can simply advise your users to use Excel if they need to do heavy editing.
Related
I have a CMS website written in aspx 2.0 that allows users to build up pages by dropping controls on a page and setting properties (reflection on the server side) and events (client side js). The render engine knows what property to call on each control to find out what to save into the database. I went through all the pitfalls of control re-hydration and lack of proper ids on the controls and really struggled to make the solution SEO friendly which currently is partial at best. Also suffer from viewstate getting huge so I have started to look at MVC as a better way forwards for the next version. The final design of the page is only set when the user decides to promote it live, and may make many changes per day.
A typical page may have many textbox controls, radio button groups, checkbox groups, dropdownlists and images. Also we have a few of our own controls that we reflect at runtime into the solution.
From my initial research into MVC, this looks to have been written to avoid these types of issues and not try to hide the html which looks very promising as well as giving final markup that is much more cross browser friendly.
Now the question - since the requirements are to generate dynamic pages with dynamic html controls, is this a step too far for MVC and I should stick with ASPX, or is there a way to generate the dynamic content which would be suitable for a non technical person to be able to do?
Really appreciate any guidance before I jump in with both feet :)
Thanks
Mark
I'm assuming by aspx 2.0 you mean WebForms? It's really not a question of if MVC is capable of doing what you need - it is capable, and in
my opinion it's more capable. However There are some major differences between WebForms and MVC check out this post for more on that topic: MVC versus WebForms.
I hope this helps. Without more information on exactly what you're trying to accomplish, there's not much more I can say. Consider asking more specific questions with some code examples.
Some of the main advantages of MVC: Clean HTML, No ViewState written on the page, easier to support html5 and thus SEO as well.
For me, since I used MVC 3 years ago I don't even want to touch WebForms thesedays.
Btw, if you want CMS + MVC, why not use Orchard rather than building yourself?
http://paulmason.biz/?p=118
I need to port the functionality of this one and only one AJAX control to MVC, but given the poor selection of MVC controls out there, I think I need to bring this legacy control into the MVC world...
I'd rather not taint my MVC project with ASP.NET controls, and welcome json/MVC alternatives you know of. (post them if you know of any)
Sample UI that I need in ASP.NET MVC
Back to porting
Although it's unfortunate that I am left to porting this control to MVC, it seems to be a widely accepted practice since Telerik has detailed instructions on how do this.
That makes me ask:
How common is it for a MVC website to use ASP.NET controls?
Again I'll mention I don't want to do this so I welcome MVC-specific alternatives. That being said, I'll proceed with trying to merge that control with my existing site. </End Disclaimer>
If you click on this hyperlink, and look at the source code at the bottom, can you tell me where I should put the following in MVC?
Code behind (My first instinct is to use a Controller but another SO question indicates I should create a create a ViewName.aspx.cs file)
How do I port the SQLDataSource to the new "Model" way of thinking. I know they are different in nature but I don't know how to present data to a ASP.NET control in a way that it will consume the information.
How do I handle the AJAX component? This control has an AJAX component using callbacks. Yes this is getting ugly, but it seems like I have to do this.
Apparently this model saves data in session or view-state. I have no idea if this even work in MVC. Guidance, an alternate control, or a life preserver is much appreciated.
I've already done research and have instructions from Telerik here and here that describes how to get started with placing a simple menu, but I need a little assistance with the more complex controls like this one.
Note: For all the commentary that has hit this question, please remember that I only want this one ASP.NET control functionality; I can't find a comparable control in MVC.
porting from asp.net webforms to MVC is a paradigm shift.
Directly porting does not work.
The Model is where you typically describe your data and do the data access
the View is for displaying the data
The controller plums the other two together
So SQLDataSource is your data access layer and would therefore go to your model
the problem with the thought pattern of SQLDataSource == Model then you get away from the point of decoupling your presentation from data access
You have to think of MVC development as a new build
I would pick a book or video series from your preferred source and learn starting with MVC3 (it has some differences that simplify build speed and reinforce the difference between webforms and mvc)
Hope this helps.
This article explains how to run web forms and mvc together
http://weblogs.asp.net/rajbk/archive/2010/05/11/running-asp-net-webforms-and-asp-net-mvc-side-by-side.aspx
This is by telerik and explains the limitiation of the grid and what is need to get it to run.
http://blogs.telerik.com/aspnetmvcteam/posts/08-11-06/asp_net_ajax_controls_in_asp_net_mvc.aspx
Add an IFrame in your MVC view that just shows the WebForms page (or just use that control on a single WebForms page).
There is nothing that says you can't have a site with both WebForms and MVC pages. You can route a single URL to a WebForm just for this control.
Why not just use the telerik MVC controls? They work quite well. Either get them via a NuGet package or visit this link http://www.telerik.com/products/aspnet-mvc.aspx
I would rather use ViewModel instead of code behind
You don't have to throw away SqlDataSource you can use result set and buld from it your model, problem may be column names in result set... tricky but can be done
Since there is no components in MVC except helpers youll need help of jQuery probably, it easy
$.ajax({
url : "/controller/action",
data: { /*json or serialized form */ },
successs: function(data){
//if you got response as html from /controller/action
$("#some_div").html(data);
}
}
Session is available in MVC but viewstate not, you can use HttpContenxt.Cache or TempData if you need something like viewstate. USe TempData to keep data between redirections, or httpcontext.cache to cache your data further more.
I can't find similar functionality in an MVC control
MVC doesn't really have a concept of controls in the same way that ASP.Net does - there are only really the plain old HTML controls (i.e. hidden input, text input, checkbox, radiobuttons, select box, text area, password and buttons).
When you need something more complicated than the plain HTML Controls you need to use some JavaScript to achieve this.
I'm not sure that you will be able to 'port' the control into MVC - you will most likely have to try and re-create it your self using an MVC controller and a partial view with a fair bit of a javascript to create the control.
Have a look at the JQuery UI Autosomplete plugin - you could probably use this to acheive something similar
using data source we can show the data in web page. but i want that there is radio button with all rows and after accessing the radio button the given functionality works?
how to do it please explain?
you need to be more clear with your question - if you already have some code then post it and then ask the how your code needs to do something specific
since the comment was amended
in ItemDataBound event
do something like (e.FindControl("controlname") as RadioButton).SelectedValue
im not quite sure if its c# or vb that you are writing in so cant be more specific at this time
Based on your comment in the other answer I understand that you're actually using WebForms server controls with Asp.net MVC application.
Avoid mixing an matching Asp.net MVC with WebForms
Unless you're skilled in both platforms I suggest you avoid this. It will only bring you headaches in the long run. Displaying and consuming checkboxes/radiobuttons (or any List<T>) should be done differently in MVC. Check this questions (and answer) out that will help you out and show you how this can be done in pure MVC way.
It also explains what things to take care when you dynamically add these items on the client side using Javascript.
I am developing a commercial MVC2 app that requires a grid that has callback update in some form to support 10,000+ rows. It should also support relatively rich content (icons, multiline descriptions etc). Although it requires the usual paging/scrolling/sorting features it does not need support for grouping. So nothing that special.
The commercial grids I looked at were Component Art and Telerik which both look pretty good but may be a little OTT for what I need. They are also $800 and $999 respectively (1 developer).
I've also looked at jqGrid and the grid from MvcContrib. These appear ok but for a commercial app I am concerned that these may be risky options - though could be wrong there.
I'd really appreciate any views/exprience on either the above grids or perhaps you can suggest a better option/approach.
FYI I am using EF4 and C#.
I have quite a bit of experience with jqGrid, the grids from DevExpress and telerik, as well as ExtJS. By far, my favorite of the bunch is jqGrid. I'm not concerned with lack of support or the project going away. They had just recently introduced a redesigned grid for use with MVC: http://www.trirand.com/blog/?p=639
telerik and DevExpress are both excellent in their own way. A friend of mine has had issues with the eventing model of the telerik grid, and I've experienced quite a bit of 'html bloat' from the DevExpress grid. telerik has great support for doing things like reordering columns on the client side, while the DevExpress grid requires a call back to do this.
ExtJS is wonderful, but I really feel that it is a very heavy JavaScript grid. Performance in IE can be dreadful with the ExtJS grid. It generally performs well if you do not have a lot of columns, or do not try and put more than one grid on a page. You'll want to definitely avoid putting the ExtJS grids into Tab controls, as all sorts of issues arise when the grid is rendered to a non visible element.
We've actually just recently decided to switch all of the grids used in our reporting system over to telerik's Silverlight grids, which perform beautifully compared to their JavaScript counterparts.
Hope this helps, and good luck.
Honestly, you can develop your own with MVC rather easily giving you all that you need. Though I suppose if you need something quick that works, the MvcContrib grid is great.
give a look to the datagrid of the MVC Controls Toolkit. It appears quite flexible. It allows editing, deletions, insertions and paging. Moreover it is really easy to move the changes to a DB in the controller. Look at it here.
There is a DevExpress grid much the same as Telerik which again might be over the top for you. However you can buy the grid on it's own rather than the whole suite although it may not be worth doing that since the grid is almost half the price of the suite.
My last shot at components for ASP.NET MC was not succesfull. Its so much harder to have a controll for MVC then for old school ASP.NET.
the routing the controll expects has to mapp nicely to the routing of your application
things get much harder when you have more then 1 grid on the page
if the controll has to work for non-Javascript enabled clients your choices are even more limited
if the back button of the browser needs to be working your choice is even more limited
In my case it turned out that it was much better to use plain html and jquery to realise paging, sorting and filtering for a table. I would draw the line if your site is more a public website (like mine) or an application that has a web frontend.
We use the ExtJS grid in out ASP.NET MVC project.
http://www.extjs.com/deploy/dev/examples/grid/array-grid.html
I recently research about this and the winning was jQgrid for performance is the Best!
I've not spent much time in the last 3-4 years doing much browser development. So I'm a little behind the times in this area. I'm curious if ASP.NET MVC makes developing complex browser based screens/forms any easier? In the past, the thing I hated most about developer browser apps was hard tedious it was creating screens/forms.
Without pointing out the obvious, you are still working with HTML/CSS and all of the inherent limitations that come with that.
MVC really just provides a more controlled method of passing data around your app. In that respect it's easier to manage data, but it's still being rendered in HTML/CSS.
I haven't built a massive application on the scale of SO, but in my small apps, it still comes down to HTML/CSS.
The MVC 2.0 adds a whole bunch of stuff that makes building forms easier. For example take a look at EditorFor and DisplayFor.
http://davidhayden.com/blog/dave/archive/2009/08/21/HtmlEditorForScaffoldColumnAttribute.aspx
MVC 2.0 also brings form validation using code annotation. You decorate your model properties with attributes from the System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations namespace and that is uses to build validation rules.
None of this makes it quite as "easy" as WebForms to build forms, but then you don't get stuck with all the old WebForms baggage either.
uh it was a little too easy before with webforms. you're not gonna like that aspect of MVC much...
It's more on the server side where the whole MVC side of it comes into play. Personally I find it simpler when creating AJAX intensive UI's, as hooking up actions to a javascript call seems a bit simpler, but in general, web UI development is what it is.
As an aside - if you don't like creating web UIs (and it's not everybody's cup of tea) - can you structure your team so that you're doing more of the server side code and get a UI developer to run up the front end stuff?
In my opinion it is a lot easier. For one thing we have much better client side javascript frameworks that helps a lot. And with asp.net mvc you don't have to worry about annoying server controls, you will instead have complete control of the html and javascript.
As above, nothing has changed. You still create HTML and CSS, the biggest gain is in using Javascript and Ajax to improve user experiance.
This is very subjective based on your personal experience and what exactly you mean by "complex browser based forms".
If you've been behind in web dev the last few years, then regardless of what route you take, you have some core HTML/CSS/JS stuff to catch up on because that ultimately where the UI gets worked.