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 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 toolkits, 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 or a type of data store based on the use of a database management system (DBMS), the software that interacts with end users, applications, and the database itself to capture and a ...
with little or no effort from the part of a
programmer
A programmer, computer programmer or coder is an author of computer source code someone with skill in computer programming.
The professional titles Software development, ''software developer'' and Software engineering, ''software engineer' ...
.
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 successor to Windows 2000 for high-end and business users a ...
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 or
SPSS.
References
{{Graphical control elements
Graphical control elements