Grid Styles?

[RobDog888]

Anyone have a nice style for a grid? Please try to attach pics instead of linking as image hosting sites are blocked at work

Thanks

[chris128]

Can you elaborate a little? Are you talking about a proper Style object for a Grid element or are you just asking if anyone has a nice looking DGV-like control? I suspect the latter but can you just confirm?

[RobDog888]

Probably should say this is for SL 3 as we are not rolling out FW 4 until late 2010 or early 2011. So a listview or grid-like equilivalent since the DGV is not in 3.

Proper style

[chris128]

Ah ok, its just that with there being the actual Grid element in WPF I wasnt sure if you meant that (although as they are not normally visible I would have been surprised if you did!).

I havent made any nice looking grid's myself but there are quite a lot of nice examples on the web that I've seen that shouldnt be too hard to copy. Might have a go myself actually and let you know what I come up with..

[DeanMc]

Is it the style or the concept of styles your looking for rob?

[chris128]

Yeah I'm still not really sure exactly what you are looking for... but anyway, I just had a play around for half an hour and came up with this - see attached image (obviously I have only done the column headers so far, but they do have different states when you hover over them or click them).

I've also attached the full project in case you wanted to have a look at the XAML

Oh and its probably all not very well made, been a while since I tried anything proper in WPF!

[DeanMc]

Looks nice!

[RobDog888]

Looking for an actual style or anything close to whats needed Dean. Im on a major overloaded project schedule so what ever shortcuts I can get are greatly appreciated.

Charis, yes that looks like wat Im looking for and in blue too. Its an app for our security department so I guess blue would be relatable.

I will check out hte xaml later when I get home.

Thanks and if you guys have anything more post them up

[DeanMc]

oh right, All I got is links so: http://mattberseth.com/blog/2008/08/..._with_sil.html

[chris128]

Glad you liked it I cant really provide you with anything further without knowing what you are going to be displaying in the grid. I mean a style for a grid cant contain much much than fancy column headers and maybe a nice background/border, so I'm assuming you also want the item data template.

[RobDog888]

Its just a single stand alone app for a small department managing phone number to take action against like blocking or temp blocking from accessing out IVR phone systems.

Looks like it may get thrown into Silverlight now though. Sure change my project plan but dont allow change of deadlines or budgets

[chris128]

I see, well unless you can tell me each item of data that needs to be displayed in the grid (ie the column headings) as well as how you want the items to work (ie should some columns display an image, or have a button in that links to another screen etc) then I cant do much to help any further than I already have

[RobDog888]

Looks like the style is a Aero theme. I think that will work throughout the page. I'd like to go with a datagrid though instead of a listview and an external style xaml file so I can use the same style on future pages.

The items in the primary grid are going to be...

Status Change Date (date format), Status (color representation, so may need to use something similar to Outlooks Color Category images. Rounded rectangle colored gradient), User ID (text format), Status Notes (text format).

The grid will be read only as we are not designing the system to be editing records but adding new records and updating old records behind the scenes so it will "appear" to be updating and adding a historical record.


Secondary grid for displaying history...

Phone (phone number format), Status Change Date (date format), Status (same as primary grid "status" format), UserID (text), Status Notes (text).

Again read only grid.


I will be using buttons, combos, textboxes and the two grids. Not a major app but its a starting point for me to get into re-writting all our desktop apps in new technologies

[chris128]

Not sure what you mean by a datagrid, unless you mean the control in the WPF Toolkit download thing (which I've never used because I dont really see the difference between that and a listview but maybe thats just me).
Personally I would use a listbox with a nice datatemplate to show the various bits of information rather than having columns and a grid. Here's an example in a program I'm currently working on:

This is after the search has been done and one result has been found:



This is after the user has clicked on one of the search results (they can double click the item or click the View All button to see more info):



Obviously not suitable for every situation but I prefer it to a boring old grid personally

[RobDog888]

Cant see pb images at work. They are blocked out.

The DataGrid is from the WPF Toolkit.

Well its all tabular data returns so dont see much other way to creatively display the data.

[RobDog888]

Not sure what you mean by a datagrid, unless you mean the control in the WPF Toolkit download thing (which I've never used because I dont really see the difference between that and a listview but maybe thats just me).
Personally I would use a listbox with a nice datatemplate to show the various bits of information rather than having columns and a grid. Here's an example in a program I'm currently working on:

This is after the search has been done and one result has been found:



This is after the user has clicked on one of the search results (they can double click the item or click the View All button to see more info):



Obviously not suitable for every situation but I prefer it to a boring old grid personally

That looks great too chris. But I think for this first app I will not give them everything as time is of the essence. Plus its not 100% under my control. Hopefully the next app I will have more time and full control.

I'll post something up tonight showing my progress.

[chris128]

Yeah thats fair enough, I find that it does take a lot longer to make WPF apps because you can end up spending so much time on the visual side of things on top of all the time you would normally spend on coding and design etc