Summary

• The GridView object represents a tabular (rows-and-columns format) display of data on a Web form.

• DataControlField objects provide a DataControlFieldCell object template to the GridViewRow objects.

• You use styles to change the look of the GridView object. You can assign styles to individual rows or columns or to the entire GridView object.

• The GridView object can be bound to an Access database, a SQL-based database, an XML file, an object, or a site map.

• A DataSource must be configured and connected, or bound, to the GridView object.

• The GridView object can be configured to provide paging, sorting, and updating.

• You can create a GridView object by dragging it to the Web form, by typing the declarative markup, or by adding code in the code-behind file.

• The GridView object provides events that are related to rows, data binding, paging, sorting, initialization, and cleanup.

• The TemplateField column allows you to provide custom column behavior based on templates. Existing columns can be easily converted to TemplateField columns.

• The GridView object can display images by using the ImageField column.

• You can retrieve images from the database by creating a simple "image engine." The engine processes requests for images by retrieving the image from the database and writing it to the Response object's OutputStream.

• You can upload images to the Web server and store them in the database by converting the ImageField column to a TemplateField column and inserting a FileUpload control in the EditItemTemplate. The RowUpdated event handler can access the FileUpload control to retrieve the image stream and send the image to the database.