Is it possible to manually add items in RadGrid via Javascript like RadTree and RadCombo?

[Mark]

Hi

Some of our clients have low connection speeds so in some screens we're trying to reduce bandwidth as much as possible.

As an example for an AJAX request, instead of using UpdatePanels, RadAjaxManager, etc for RadCombo and RadTree we use Microsoft AJAX PageMethods in Javascript to get data then populate these controls via Javascript. We find the rich client-side features for these controls excellent for this purpose.

As an example, this way we have reduced the bandwidth on a heavy page from 100Kb up / 100Kb (sometimes more) down to about 20 bytes up / 100 bytes down.

It means more work via Javascript to manually populate these controls but we're getting impressive bandwidth speeds.

Is such a thing possible with RadGrid? Some of our grid screens are basically read-only except for reodering, resizing and sorting. It would be great if I could just use PageMethods to get the data then use Javascript to populate the RadGrid myself.

I'm guessing probably not as I couldn't find any documentation on the subject.

However it never hurts to ask  ;-)


Kind regards

Mark Eaton

[Vlad]

Hello Mark,

Unfortunately the grid does not support pure client-side binding/creation. As a composite data bound control with editing support there are lots of templates, binding expressions, rich client controls, etc. and it will be very hard or even impossible to support all these if the grid is created/populated client-side. For the tree view and combo which are more simpler controls this is possible of course without server-side templates and binding expressions support.

Kind regards,
Vlad
the Telerik team

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[Mark]

Hi Vlad

I don't know if this could be a suggestion?

I noticed that 

http://www.componentart.com/blogs/milos/archive/2007/05/02/new-grid-feature-client-side-binding-to-web-service.aspx

supports client-side data binding with their grid. Admittedly I haven't reasearch thoroughly with their 3rd party control grid and it could not be as rich as Telerik RadGrid.

Don't get me wrong. I love the Telerik controls and the rich client-side functionality is making our website very fast with far fewer hits to the web server.

I know you said that RadGrid is complex but some of our grids are purely read-only except for paging / sorting, etc. I.e. no editing / deleting or adding of any sort.

Perhaps if a grid was read-only as such then client-side binding could be an option?

This could reduce our bandwith from 50K - 100K+ to something no more than 5K.

I'm not a control developer so I have no idea what it is I'm asking.

Could such an approach be feasible?


Kind regards

Mark Eaton

[Konstantin Petkov]

Hello Mark,

We are always working on improving the controls suite and we have many features in mind for enhancing the Grid control in a future version. The client-side population is definitely one of those we consider implementing and researching a possible options for its implementation.

Thank you for your feedback! We will have it mind for sure.

Regards,
Konstantin Petkov
the Telerik team

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[Mark]

Hi Vlad

I was just reading about your link about RadGrid client-side databinding: http://blogs.telerik.com/vladimirenchev/posts.aspx?Year=2008&Month=7


Thanks very much for this feature in 2008 Q2!!!!

Going by the last response I wasn't expecting this for quite some time, if at all. Glad to be wrong!


Kind regards

Mark Eaton