A grid view or a datagrid is a
graphical control element that presents a tabular view of data. A typical grid view also supports some or all of the following:
*
Clicking a ''column header'' to change the sort order of the grid
*
Dragging column headers to change their size and their order
*
In-place editing
In computer science, an in-place algorithm is an algorithm which transforms input using no auxiliary data structure. However, a small amount of extra storage space is allowed for auxiliary variables. The input is usually overwritten by the outpu ...
of viewed data
* Row and column separators, and alternating row background colors
An interactive live demo example of this type of widget can be seen her
Some
widget toolkit
A widget toolkit, widget library, GUI toolkit, or UX library is a library or a collection of libraries containing a set of graphical control elements (called ''widgets'') used to construct the graphical user interface (GUI) of programs.
Most widge ...
s, these are libraries containing a collection of equally designed graphical control elements, distinguish between a grid and a datagrid. If this is the case, the term datagrid refers specifically to a graphical control element that can be linked to a
database
In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases s ...
with little or no effort from the part of a
programmer.
They are commonly used to display lists of files, such as the "Details" view in
Windows XP
Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...
file managers.
Grid views are sometimes referred to as ''spreadsheet widgets'' (or ''spreadsheet controls'', with control being a common synonym for widget). This is due to grid views' visual and sometimes behavioral similarity to
spreadsheet
A spreadsheet is a computer application for computation, organization, analysis and storage of data in tabular form. Spreadsheets were developed as computerized analogs of paper accounting worksheets. The program operates on data entered in c ...
applications. However, though many grid views support editing of underlying data, they cannot be used for arbitrary calculations. Spreadsheet widgets occur frequently in scientific applications such as
PSPP
PSPP is a free software application for analysis of sampled data, intended as a free alternative for IBM SPSS Statistics. It has a graphical user interface and conventional command-line interface. It is written in C and uses GNU Scientific Lib ...
or
SPSS
SPSS Statistics is a statistical software suite developed by IBM for data management, advanced analytics, multivariate analysis, business intelligence, and criminal investigation. Long produced by SPSS Inc., it was acquired by IBM in 2009. C ...
.
Tutorials
Interactive Grid with Your Own Hands an article by Dmitry Sheiko
Practice of grid view using within content managementMove Over DataGrid There's a New Grid in Town
{{Graphical control elements
Graphical control elements