advice on how best to put a grid inside a user control

[andieje]

Hi

I have a grid that i use on several different pages. Naturally i don't want to keep copying the grid formatting and template definition and item data bound events from page to page so i thought i would put it in a reusable control.

The problem i am facing is that the different pages that use the control display different sets of data so the logic in the NeedDataSource event is completely different on the different pages.

Could i do something like bubble up the NeedDatasource event so it is handled by the page that uses the control. That doesnt seem a very nice design. Certainly doesn't seem in keeping with the whole principle of information hiding and the like but it's the only thing i could think of

any other suggestions heartily welcomed!

[andieje]

So i had a go and it seems to work. However i don't want to find out later down the line that my approach is flawed so i was hoping someone from the telerik team would have a look and see if they can forsee any problems. This is what i did:
1) put radgrid in user control
2) I exposed a public property on the User control called DataSource. This set the datasource property of the radgrid
3) I propagated the NeedDataSource event the user control. The page holding the user control handles the bubbled NeedDataSource event by setting the DataSource property of the user control (which in turn sets the data source property of the rad grid)

Here is pertinent code in the user control

Partial Class Examples_controls_JourneyGrid
    Inherits System.Web.UI.UserControl

    Public Event BubbleNeedDataSource As Telerik.Web.UI.GridNeedDataSourceEventHandler

    Public WriteOnly Property DataSource() As Object
        Set(ByVal value As Object)
            gridJourney.DataSource = value
        End Set
    End Property

    Protected Sub OnBubbleNeedDataSource(ByVal e As Telerik.Web.UI.GridNeedDataSourceEventArgs)

        RaiseEvent BubbleNeedDataSource(Me, e)
    End Sub

    Protected Sub gridJourney_NeedDataSource(ByVal source As Object, ByVal e As Telerik.Web.UI.GridNeedDataSourceEventArgs) Handles gridJourney.NeedDataSource
        OnBubbleNeedDataSource(e)
    End Sub

Here is the pertinent code in a page containing the user control

    Protected Sub gridJourney_NeedDataSource(ByVal source As Object, ByVal e As Telerik.Web.UI.GridNeedDataSourceEventArgs) Handles JourneyGrid1.BubbleNeedDataSource

        JourneyGrid1.datasource = collection <=====some data i obtained
    End Sub