Setting column defenitions within a datasource read

[Danny]

Hi, 

Is there a way to set the column definitions of a grid within its datasource read-function?

We need to retrieve the data from the server and want to use server-side paging, hereby the column-definitions come directly from the server and are not known before the datasource read is called and can not be defined on the grid directly when initializing it.

I have made an example  to illustrate the porblem.

http://dojo.telerik.com/IWiqo/7

[DavidOBrien]

What kind of page is it? .net , php , jsp? plain html?

On most of my more complex pages I have a database table with the column definitions in it already and read them when the page generates for both the schema definition and grid columns definition

schema: {

                            data: "data",

                            total: "total",

                            model: {

                                id: "EmailID",

                                fields: {

<?php
  foreach ( $columns as $key => $value ) {
   echo str_repeat("\t",8) . $value['field'] . ': { editable: ' . $value['editable'] . ', type: "' . $value['type'] . '"},'."\n";
  }
?>

                                }

                            }

                        }

$("#grid").kendoGrid({

                        dataSource: dataSource,

                        pageable: true,

                        toolbar: ["create","save","cancel"],

                        columns: [

                            { command: ["edit", "destroy"], title: " ", width: 190 },

<?php
   foreach ( $columns as $key => $value ) {
     echo str_repeat("\t",7) . "{" .
     ( !empty( $value['field'] ) ? "field:'" . $value['field'] . "'," : '' ) .
     ( !empty( $value['title'] ) ? "title:\"" . $value['title'] . "\"," : '' ) .
     ( !empty( $value['width'] ) ? "width:" . $value['width'] . "," : '' ) .
     ( !empty( $value['template'] ) ? "template:'" . $value['template'] . "'," : '' ) .
     ( !empty( $value['headerTemplate'] ) ? "headerTemplate:\"" . $value['headerTemplate'] . "\"," : '' ) .
     ( !empty( $value['editor'] ) ? "editor:" . $value['editor'] . ","    : '' ) . "},\n";
   }
?>

                        ],

                        editable: {

                            mode: "popup",

                        },

                        sortable: true,                       

                    });

[Danny]

It is an .Net page. 

We receive the column-definitions together with the data that we need to show. In your solution we need to do two calls to the server. one to retrieve the column-definitions and a second one to receive the actual data. This is not desirable within our application.

[Dimo]

Hi Danny,

The described combination of requirements is unfortunately not supported.

If you sacrifice one of the requirements below, then the scenario becomes possible to implement.

- single request, which includes both configuration settings and data
- server data operations (paging, sorting, filtering, editing)
- usage of non-string data fields for data operations

Regards,
Dimo
Telerik