A grid view or a datagrid is a
graphical control element
A graphical widget (also graphical control element or control) in a graphical user interface is an element of interaction, such as a button or a scroll bar. Controls are software components that a computer user interacts with through dir ...
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 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 ...
with little or no effort from the part of a
programmer
A computer programmer, sometimes referred to as a software developer, a software engineer, a programmer or a coder, is a person who creates computer programs — often for larger computer software.
A programmer is someone who writes/creates ...
.
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 release to manufacturing, released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Wind ...
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 ...
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
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