How to use Slickgrid Formatters with MVC - asp.net-mvc

Question

I am working on a first Slickgrid MVC application where the column definition and format is to be stored in a database. I can retrieve the list of columns quite happily and populate them until I ran into the issue with formatting of dates. No problem - for each date (or time) column I can store a formatter name in the database so this can be retrieved as well. I'm using the following code which works ok:
CLOP_ViewColumnsDataContext columnDB = new CLOP_ViewColumnsDataContext();
var results = from u in columnDB.CLOP_VIEW_COLUMNs
select u;
List<dynColumns> newColumns = new List<dynColumns>();
foreach(CLOP_VIEW_COLUMN column in results)
{
newColumns.Add(new dynColumns
{
id = column.COLUMN_NUMBER.ToString(),
name = column.HEADING.Trim(),
field = column.VIEW_FIELD.Trim(),
width = column.WIDTH,
formatter = column.FORMATTER.Trim()
});
}
var gridColumns = new JavaScriptSerializer().Serialize(newColumns);
This is all fine apart from the fomatter. An example of the variable gridColumns is:
[{"id":"1","name":"Date","field":"SCHEDULED_DATE","width":100,"formatter":"Slick.Formatters.Date"},{"id":"2","name":"Carrier","field":"CARRIER","width":50,"formatter":null}]
Which doesn't look too bad however the application the fails with the error Microsoft JScript runtime error: Function expected in the slick.grid.js script
Any help much appreciated - even if there is a better way of doing this!

Answer 1

You are assigning a string to the formatter property, wich is expected to be function.
Try:
window["Slick"]["Formatters"]["Date"];
But i really think you should reconsider doing it this way and instead store your values in the db and define your columns through code.
It will be easier to maintain and is less error prone.
What if you decide to use custom editors and formatters, which you later rename?
Then your code will break or you'll have to rename all entries in the db as well as in code.