Using a DataGridView to display the contents of a DataTable

Question

I have a three-column DataTable that contains data that I need to use in various ways. The data in this DataTable comes from an Exchange Web Services call. The first column contains a row counter, the second contains the calendar name, and the third contains the calendar ID (which is a gibberish-looking string).

Displaying the raw data in a DataGridView is straightforward. But I want the DataGridView's second column to be different: instead of showing the calendar ID, I want to show some text ("Copy"), which, when clicked, will copy the calendar ID to the user's clipboard. Ideally it'd be styled like a hyperlink so the user knows it's not just some text in a box. This can conceivably be done with a DataGridViewLinkColumn type with an event handler.

The piece I'm having trouble with is populating the rows.

The following code sets up the columns just fine. But it doesn't populate the rows.

private static DataGridView CreateCalendarGridView(DataTable calendarTable)
{
    //Bind to the data source
    var calendarGridView = new DataGridView();
    //calendarGridView.AutoGenerateColumns = false;
    calendarGridView.AutoSize = false;
    calendarGridView.DataSource = calendarTable;
    calendarGridView.ColumnHeadersVisible = true;

    //Create counter column
    var counterColumn = new DataGridViewTextBoxColumn();
    counterColumn.DataPropertyName = COUNTER_COLUMN_NAME;
    counterColumn.Name = COUNTER_COLUMN_NAME;
    counterColumn.HeaderText = COUNTER_COLUMN_LABEL;

    //Create the Calendar name column
    var calendarNameColumn = new DataGridViewTextBoxColumn();
    calendarNameColumn.DataPropertyName = CALENDAR_COLUMN_NAME;
    calendarNameColumn.Name = CALENDAR_COLUMN_NAME;
    calendarNameColumn.HeaderText = CALENDAR_COLUMN_LABEL;

    //Create the Copy ID hyperlink column
    var copyIdLinkColumn = new DataGridViewLinkColumn();
    copyIdLinkColumn.DataPropertyName = ID_COLUMN_NAME;
    copyIdLinkColumn.Name = ID_COLUMN_NAME;
    copyIdLinkColumn.HeaderText = ID_COLUMN_NAME;
    copyIdLinkColumn.UseColumnTextForLinkValue = false;
    copyIdLinkColumn.TrackVisitedState = true;
    copyIdLinkColumn.LinkColor = Color.Blue;
    copyIdLinkColumn.VisitedLinkColor = Color.Purple;
    copyIdLinkColumn.LinkBehavior = LinkBehavior.HoverUnderline;
    copyIdLinkColumn.Text = "Copy";
    copyIdLinkColumn.UseColumnTextForLinkValue = true;

    calendarGridView.Columns.Add(counterColumn);
    calendarGridView.Columns.Add(calendarNameColumn);
    calendarGridView.Columns.Add(copyIdLinkColumn);



    //I feel like I'm missing a foreach row in the DataTable which would
    //create the row of cells, but I'm not sure, because isn't that the
    //point of the calendarGridView.DataSource assignment above?



    return calendarGridView;
}

I feel like if I could get the rows to fill, I could figure out how to change the behavior of the clickable third column.

What am I doing wrong?

What's the result? Is there any link shown on the link column? — King King, Sep 25 '13 at 21:02
The first column (the row counter) is an int. The other two are strings. — rianjs, Sep 26 '13 at 14:13

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 25 '13 at 22:10

I've made a working sample. Please choose as the answer if it helps you.

.

public partial class CalendarTable_Stage1 : Form
{
    public CalendarTable_Stage1()
    {
        InitializeComponent();

        this.Controls.Add(makeDGV(DT));
    }

    DataTable DT
    {
        get
        {
            //Sample DataTable
            DataTable dtb = new DataTable();
            dtb.Columns.Add("empName");
            dtb.Columns.Add("empAddress");
            dtb.Rows.Add("Salim", "S.10, Santhi Nagar, Palakkad");
            dtb.Rows.Add("Manaf", "Thriveni, English church road, Palakkad");
            dtb.Rows.Add("Mohsin Khan", "Civil Nagar, Palakkad");

            return dtb;
        }
    }

    private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {

    }

    DataGridView makeDGV(DataTable dt)
    {
        DataGridView dgv = new DataGridView();
        // set dgv properties

        dgv.Size = new Size(300, 400);
        dgv.Columns.Add("empName", "Name");

        DataGridViewLinkColumn linkCol = new DataGridViewLinkColumn();
        linkCol.HeaderText = "Address";
        linkCol.Name = "empAddress";
        dgv.Columns.Add(linkCol);
        dgv.AllowUserToAddRows = false; // This will greatly increase adding speed

        dgv.CellContentClick += new DataGridViewCellEventHandler(dgv_CellContentClick);

        foreach (DataRow row in dt.Rows)
        {
            DataGridViewLinkCell_Mine linker = new DataGridViewLinkCell_Mine();
            linker.Value = "Copy";
            linker.data = row[1].ToString();

            DataGridViewTextBoxCell cell = new DataGridViewTextBoxCell();
            cell.Value = row[0].ToString();
            dgv.Rows.Add();

            if (!dgv.AllowUserToAddRows)
            {
                dgv[0, dgv.Rows.Count - 1] = cell;
                dgv[1, dgv.Rows.Count - 1] = linker;
            }
            else
            {
                dgv[0, dgv.Rows.Count - 2] = cell;
                dgv[1, dgv.Rows.Count - 2] = linker;
            }

        }

        return dgv;
    }

    class DataGridViewLinkCell_Mine : DataGridViewLinkCell
    {
        public string data = "";
    }

    void dgv_CellContentClick(object sender, DataGridViewCellEventArgs e)
    {
        if (e.ColumnIndex == 1)
        {
            DataGridView dgv = (DataGridView)sender;
            DataGridViewLinkCell_Mine cell = (DataGridViewLinkCell_Mine)dgv[e.ColumnIndex, e.RowIndex];
            Clipboard.SetText(cell.data);


            MessageBox.Show(Clipboard.GetText());
        }
    }


}

Nice, I was able to adapt this solution for my needs. Thanks. — rianjs, Sep 26 '13 at 17:55

NoChance · Answer 2 · 2013-09-25T22:39:58.187

This may answer part of your question. If you will be using the datatable to update the database automatically, you may want to leave the datatable as is and not add columns to it. In this case, you add your hyperlink column to the datagridview and not to the bound table. You don't need a foreach. Here is an example:

    //populate the data table dt
    //...

    //bind
    calendarGridView.DataSource = dt;

    //add a new link column (with some properties...) to the gridview
    DataGridViewLinkColumn copyIDLinkColumn = new DataGridViewLinkColumn();

    copyIDLinkColumn.UseColumnTextForLinkValue = true;
    copyIDLinkColumn.HeaderText = "Copy";
    copyIDLinkColumn.ActiveLinkColor = Color.White;
    copyIDLinkColumn.LinkBehavior = LinkBehavior.SystemDefault;
    copyIDLinkColumn.LinkColor = Color.Blue;
    copyIDLinkColumn.TrackVisitedState = true;
    copyIDLinkColumn.VisitedLinkColor = Color.Red;

    calendarGridView.Columns.Add(copyIDLinkColumn);
    copyIDLinkColumn.Text = "Click Me"; //Set it once as a default for all cells in col.

    //...

    // Event to handle column click (needs to be wired from designer for example)
    private void dataGridView_CellContentClick(object sender, DataGridViewCellEventArgs e)
    {
    //copy some data to clipboard...
    System.Windows.Forms.Clipboard.SetText(e.RowIndex.ToString());
    MessageBox.Show(e.RowIndex.ToString());

    }

Using a DataGridView to display the contents of a DataTable

2 Answers2