RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX
You can allow users to set the order of the grid columns by dragging and dropping them. Just set the ClientSettings.AllowColumnsReorder property to True. When the user drags a column header to a new location, the grid indicates where the column will be inserted when it is dropped:
Additionally, in case you enabled scrolling and have a horizontal scroll for navigation,
the grid would be "smart" to auto-scroll when you drag columns and reach the end of the visible
region (when you attempt to reorder the column with another outside of the visible area).
There are two possible modes for column reordering: client and server-side. If you want to reorder columns on client, set the ClientSettings.ReorderColumnsOnClient property to True.
When columns are reordered on the client, The ClientSettings.ColumnsReorderMethod property determines what happens when the user drops a column in a new position. When ColumnsReorderMethod is "Swap" (the default), the dragged column switches places with the column that is currently in the target position. When ColumnsReorderMethod is "Reorder", all the columns between the dragged column's start position and its drop position shift over to make room for the dragged column. Changes do not persist on the server until after a postback.
When columns are reordered on the server, the grid uses the "swap" method multiple times to re-order columns.
 Caution |
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When enabling column reordering, the table view's EnableColumnViewState property must be set to True (the default value).
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Reordering columns programmatically
When columns are created programmatically, they appear in the same order that they were added to the Columns collection. You can reorder columns dynamically in server-side code using any of the following methods:
The SwapColumns(String,String) method accepts the UniqueNames for two columns to swap:
CopyC#
grid.MasterTableView.SwapColumns("City","ContactName");CopyVB.NET
grid.MasterTableView.SwapColumns("City","ContactName")
The SwapColumns(Int32,Int32) method accepts the indexes of two columns to swap:
CopyC#
grid.MasterTableView.SwapColumns(3, 4);
CopyVB.NET
grid.MasterTableView.SwapColumns(3, 4)
 Note |
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Note that GridExpandColumn and GridRowIndicatorColumn are always in front of data columns, so column indexs start at index 2.
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The OrderIndex property lets you change the position of columns to move them to a specific location:
CopyC#
GridColumnCollection cols = grid.MasterTableView.Columns;
GridColumn c = cols.FindByUniqueName(columnName);
if (c != null){
int start = c.OrderIndex;
for (int i= start; i < cols.Count; i++)
{
c = cols[i];
if (i < cols.Count - 1)
c.OrderIndex = i+1;
else
c.OrderIndex = start;
}
}CopyVB.NET
Dim cols As GridColumnCollection = grid.MasterTableView.Columns
Dim c As GridColumn = cols.FindByUniqueName(columnName)
If c IsNot Nothing Then
Dim start As Integer = c.OrderIndex
For i As Integer = start To cols.Count - 1
c = cols(i)
If i < cols.Count - 1 Then
c.OrderIndex = i + 1
Else
c.OrderIndex = start
End If
Next
End If| Caution |
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When using the OrderIndex property to reorder columns, make sure that you assign values so that no two columns have the same index and no index is omitted.
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Reordering columns with viewstate disabled
When working with disabled viewstate (see Optimizing ViewState usage), RadGrid must rebind on each page load to maintain its state. Because of this, client-side column reordering does not work as expected in this mode. If you want to enable column re-ordering when working with EnableViewState = false for the grid, ensure that you set ClientSettings.ReorderCoumnsOnClient to False in order to reorder the grid columns on the server.
See Also