MS Access like navigation in radgrid with auto save when moving to next record

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Last Updated: 15 Jun 2020 15:13 by S

Created on: 07 Mar 2018 20:06

Category: Grid

Type: Feature Request

MS Access like navigation in radgrid with auto save when moving to next record

Dear developers

I would like to see an easy way to have straight forward navigation / edit / save operations in radgrid the way it works for MS Access grids. When working in MS Access grid the record automatically gets dirty on edit, has an easy cancel by ESC button, and auto-saves without any trouble when moving to the next record. The way it works in MS Access is until 2018 still hard to find in a web-control. I managed to use the batch edit and have a kind of auto save when moving to the next record. but it is a pain because the postback action results in loosing the focus on the field you navigated to. 

Why is it so hard to built what the MS boys (the old guys did great work) already built ages ago. Its about time that our web controls behave like old fashioned windows fat client controls.

Please don't lean behind, thinking that all is fine now. its not, a lot can be improved and made easier to handle and give user better user experience.

When I look at the current NEW / UPDATES for ASP.NET Ajax Controls it make me cry to see that its apparently put aside as FINISHED. Wake up, improve more or give a clear roadmap for future developments. Progress should not loose focus on the Telerik ASP.NET Ajax toolbox because that one is still a major tool for the coming 5-10 years I expect.

4 comments

Posted on: 15 Jun 2020 15:13

dear Atilla

Thank you for reviewing and commenting. I will take your recommendations into consideration and try to find a comfortable access like editing.

Thanks for all the good work!

ADMIN

Attila Antal

Posted on: 15 Jun 2020 14:23

Hi,

As opposed to MS Access, Telerik Web UI for ASP.NET components are server Controls that heavily depend on the communication between browser-server and is expected from them to perform PostBacks. Because of that, the application will lose its focus.

The architectural design of the Web Forms framework is to trigger PostBacks as a means of updating the client-side with server-side data.

Despite the numerous amount of functionalities the RadGrid can offer, it does not have an MS Access like editing and behavior. Nevertheless, there are a few possible ways to achieve a similar behavior using Telerik Components.

Using the Client-Side Programming of RadGrid and binding data on the client-side.
Instead of using the RadGrid (server control), you can use a Kendo UI Grid which is a JavaScript component (entirely client-side widget).
Using RadGrid with BatchEdit mode and server-side binding. Taking advantage of the Batch Editing Client-side API and the Grid Client-Side APIs you can implement a JavaScript logic that will save the focus of the currently edited cell, and restore that back after the PostBack.

Kind regards,
Attila Antal
Progress Telerik

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Posted on: 02 Jun 2020 18:33

Dear David

Thanks for replying. I still hope this will some day be easy to implement the same way it's now for MS access grid. it simply comes out of the box. I understand its not that simple for us but expect it to be possible for Progress to follow your suggestion and create some trigger thing that fires on row leave. I actually created something myself but the problem with it is that after the save operation the grid reloads and you loose the position where you are. That is not convenient for a user. A simple out ot the box robust navigation between rows and cells like excel and auto-save option when you leave an edited row. In MS Access this saved me a lot of trouble and makes it very convenient for a user. If there is some other grid control on the market that can do this out of the box..... in asp.net environment it would be great to hear about it.

Kind regards and enjoy summer.

David

Posted on: 02 Jun 2020 14:53

This could work with an 'OnBulkEditRowComplete' event that triggers when the focus moves off a row, pushing an asynch call to a WebMethod in the code behind with the edited item.

If I were to try and do a work-around with the current code, I would:
   start with a client event for OnRowDeselecting
    Get the values from the controls in the row and package them up as a JSON object
    pass that object off to a WebMethod for processing

The very difficult part would be getting the new values out of the controls...because the OnRowDeselecting event doesn't have the gridEditItem associated with it.

OnBatchEditClosed (Closing) could be used, but this is for an individual cell, not the entire row... altho I suppose some back-end trickery could be used to stage changes for the entire row and commit them using OnRowDeselecting.