Most Suitable control suggestion

[Kieran Southern]

Hi,

Can anyone suggest a suitable control from the controls suite for achieving the data layout like so:

http://perryworld.co.uk/testarea/sample.gif

It is basically a parent, with a count of children and then each child with a count of their children. I was considering the repeater control but thought there may be a telerik control that is suitable.

Many Thanks
Kieran

[Shaun Peet]

If you're looking for something to repeat horizontally like in the picture, then a repeater is probably your best option.  I'm thinking a TreeView would be ideal if you could go vertically (or a Panelbar).

Having said all that, it depends on what you are trying to accomplish.  Are you looking for any kind of interactivity with this list?  For example, do you want to hide the children until the parents are "expanded"?  We often lose sight of the fact that telerik designs user interface controls.  And they do a great job of it.  However, when all you want to do is simply display data without user interaction; that doesn't necessarily require a user interface.  In fact, you will probably find that you will save an awful lot of bandwidth by using controls, such as the repeater, that are specifically designed to not be interactive by defualt.  It's the classic "datagrid" vs. "repeater" argument - both can output the exact same design; but the datagrid was designed to be interactive and carries with that a heavy footprint.

[Kieran Southern]

Hi,

Thanks for this. No, I dont need expand/collapse, I have a self referencing table like:

id    name       parentid
1     Cyprus     -1
2     Paphos    1
3     Limassol  1
4     USA        -1
5     Florida     4
6     New York 4

And I need to achieve the following layout:

Cyprus (2)          USA (2)
  Limassol (5)       New York(18)
  Paphos (8)         Florida (22)

(The Child items under Limassol, Paphos etc are in a seperate 'properties' table.)

in a 3 by however many rows are required. I've been looking also at the datalist as that will allow me to display the 3 across, though getting the data from the sql db in the correct format is proving tricky.

Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Kieran

[Shaun Peet]

If you want to do it manually; here you go:

    Private Function CreateTable() As HtmlTable
        Dim outputTable As New HtmlTable
        Dim cols As Integer = 3
        Dim dtParents As New Data.DataTable ' SQL Select = "SELECT * FROM TABLE WHERE parentID = -1"
        Dim numParents As Integer = dtParents.Rows.Count
        Dim fullrows As Integer = Math.Floor(numParents / cols)
        Dim leftovers As Integer = numParents - (fullrows * cols)
        Dim intR As Integer = 1 ' Counts the number of rows for the loop
        Dim currentParentRow As Integer = 0 ' Sets the current index in the datatable
        Do While intR < fullrows
            intR += 1
            Dim outputTableRow As New HtmlTableRow
            Dim intC As Integer = 1 ' Counts the number of columns for the loop
            Do While intC < cols
                intC += 1
                Dim outputTableCell As New HtmlTableCell
                ' Get the row from the dtParents datatable correstponding to the current cell
                Dim rParent As Data.DataRow = dtParents.Rows(currentParentRow)
                currentParentRow += 1
                outputTableCell.InnerHtml = rParent("Name") & "<br />"
                Dim dtChildren As New Data.DataTable ' SQL Select = "SELECT * FROM TABLE WHERE parentID = r("ID")"
                ' Get your additional info for each child from your other table
                Dim additionalInfo As String = "(" & "other properties" & ")"
                For Each rChild As Data.DataRow In dtChildren.Rows
                    outputTableCell.InnerHtml += "&nbsp;&nbsp;" & rChild("Name") & " " & additionalInfo & "<br />"
                Next
                outputTableRow.Cells.Add(outputTableCell)
            Loop
            outputTable.Rows.Add(outputTableRow)
        Loop
        If leftovers > 0 Then
            Dim outputTableRow As New HtmlTableRow
            Do While leftovers < cols
                leftovers += 1
                Dim outputTableCell As New HtmlTableCell
                ' Get the row from the dtParents datatable correstponding to the current cell
                Dim rParent As Data.DataRow = dtParents.Rows(currentParentRow)
                currentParentRow += 1
                outputTableCell.InnerHtml = rParent("Name") & "<br />"
                Dim dtChildren As New Data.DataTable ' SQL Select = "SELECT * FROM TABLE WHERE parentID = r("ID")"
                ' Get your additional info for each child from your other table
                Dim additionalInfo As String = "(" & "other properties" & ")"
                For Each rChild As Data.DataRow In dtChildren.Rows
                    outputTableCell.InnerHtml += "&nbsp;&nbsp;" & rChild("Name") & " " & additionalInfo & "<br />"
                Next
                outputTableRow.Cells.Add(outputTableCell)
            Loop
        End If
        Return outputTable
    End Function

Copy and paste that entire function into your vb and it should make a little more sense.

Sometimes when the "black boxes" of the world won't let me do exatly what I want, I do it myself and it often makes more sense that way.