Generated DataGrid Objects

Although the concept is known as a Meta DataGrid... the generated DataGrid objects in and of itself is just a subclass of the actual QDataGrid object. (Note that this is different than a MetaControl, which is not a control, but is in fact a single data object and a collection of controls that can be generated from and linked to it.)

A generated/meta datagrid is simply a QDataGrid with a bunch of Meta___() methods to allow you to easily define and add columns for a given data class.

Using simple string properties or more complex (and more powerful) QCubed Query Nodes, you can add any column (even columns from linked tables) to the datagrid, and the meta-functionality will automatically take care of things like the column's Title, Html, Filter and Sorting properties.

It even comes with its own MetaDataBinder(), and the datagrid is already set up to use that as its databinder (but of course, even this is override-able). It's also very easy to specify a condition on the meta datagrid - you don't even need to define your own data bind function! Simply set the AdditionalConditions property to an appropriate QQuery condition, and you're good to go. In this example, we'll only show projects whose status is "open". Clauses such as expand can also easily be applied by similarly setting the AdditionalClauses property.

But again, similar to MetaControls, note that the datagrid is just a regular QDataGrid object, and the columns are just regular QDataGridColumn objects, which means that you can modify the colums or the datagrid itself however you see fit.

For example, you can change or add a filter to a meta-created QDataGridColumn. Just remember that if there's already one auto-generated for you, you may want to clear it first by changing the FilterType to None before applying your new filter to it. This is particularly important when switching to a ListFilter type from a TextFilter type because the old text filter would otherwise show up as an entry in the dropdown labeled "0".