How to add a UserControl to a DataGridView in VB.net, and have the control always showing? - vb.net

Question

I made a usercontrol that is basically a panel with a bunch of labels, buttons, and Event Handlers on it. I want to be able to populate a DataGridView with these controls.
I have followed the instructions in this MSDN article, and have created a DataGridViewColumn and a DataGridViewCell class to associate with my Control.
The issue I am having is that the control is not rendering. When I run the code at the link above, It shows the date in the cell, and the user control only shows when the cell is being edited. What I'd like to have happen is that the control is always visible in the cell, similar to the behavior in a DataGridViewImageColumn.
How can I force the DataGridView to always show the control?

Answer 1

The main idea:
Create a user control
In form load event, for each record, create an instance of user control, set values to its properties, add event handlers, set its visiblity to false and then add it to your grid Controls collection, and set the tag of your wanted cell or that row to this control.
Handle CellPainting event of your grid and for each row of grid, retrieve tag of your wanted cell and convert it to your control and position it in cell bounds and make it visible. To get the position that control should be shown use GetCellDisplayRectangle method of DataGridView
Screenshot:
My sample control with name of SomeControl, contains a label and a text box and a property SomeProperty and an event SomePropertyChanges. I show cell value in TextBox of my custom control.
You can do anything with your custom control containing any control and any type of properties and events.
Code:
Here is vb-like pseudo code.
'This is not VB, this is vb-like pseudo code
Private Sub Form_Load(sender as object , e as EventArgs)
'Get data
'Show data in grid
'For each row
For Each row as DataGridViewRow in this.categoryDataGridView.Rows
'Create an instance of control
Dim myControl as New SomeControl()
'Set properties and register event handlers
myControl.SomeProperty = row.Cells[2].Value
myControl.SomePropertyChanged += myControl_SomePropertyChanged
'Make it invisible
myControl.Visible = False
'Set tag of your wanted cell to control
row.Cells[2].Tag = myControl
'Add control to Controls collection of grid
this.categoryDataGridView.Controls.Add(myControl)
Next
End Sub
Private Sub myControl_SomePropertyChanged(sender as object, e as EventArgs)
'event handler of SomePropertyChanged for custom control
'do stuff here
End Sub
Private Sub dataGridView_CellPainting(sender as object, e as DataGridViewCellPaintingEventArgs )
'for each row
For i as Integer=0 To dataGridView.RowCount- 1
'Extract control from tag of your wanted cell
var myControl= this.dataGridView.Rows[i].Cells[2].Tag as SomeControl
'Get cell rectangle
Dim cellRectangle As Rectangle= dataGridView.GetCellDisplayRectangle(2, i, True)
'Set location
myControl.Location = New Point(cellRectangle.X, cellRectangle.Y )
'Set size
myControl.Size = New Size(cellRectangle.Width - 1, cellRectangle.Height - 1)
'Make visible
myControl.Visible = True
Next
}

Answer 2

read this article
How can you add a custom user control to a datagridview?
http://bytes.com/topic/visual-basic-net/answers/444528-how-can-you-add-custom-user-control-datagridview

Answer 3

private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
DataTable dt = new DataTable();
dt.Columns.Add("Name");
dt.Columns.Add("Email Id");
for (int j = 0; j < 10; j++)
{
dt.Rows.Add("", "ravindra.m089#gmail.com");
}
this.dataGridView1.DataSource = dt;
this.dataGridView1.Columns[0].Width = 200;
/*
* First method : Convert to an existed cell type such ComboBox cell,etc
*/
DataGridViewComboBoxCell ComboBoxCell = new DataGridViewComboBoxCell();
ComboBoxCell.Items.AddRange(new string[] { "aaa", "bbb", "ccc" });
this.dataGridView1[0, 0] = ComboBoxCell;
this.dataGridView1[0, 0].Value = "bbb";
DataGridViewTextBoxCell TextBoxCell = new DataGridViewTextBoxCell();
this.dataGridView1[0, 1] = TextBoxCell;
this.dataGridView1[0, 1].Value = "some text";
DataGridViewCheckBoxCell CheckBoxCell = new DataGridViewCheckBoxCell();
CheckBoxCell.Style.Alignment = DataGridViewContentAlignment.MiddleCenter;
this.dataGridView1[0, 2] = CheckBoxCell;
this.dataGridView1[0, 2].Value = true;
DataGridViewTextBoxCell txt = new DataGridViewTextBoxCell();
txt.ToolTipText = "Enter Ur Name";
this.dataGridView1[0, 3] = txt;
this.dataGridView1[0, 3].Value = "lakshman";
/*
* Second method : Add control to the host in the cell
*/
DateTimePicker dtp = new DateTimePicker();
dtp.Value = DateTime.Now.AddDays(-10);
//add DateTimePicker into the control collection of the DataGridView
this.dataGridView1.Controls.Add(dtp);
//set its location and size to fit the cell
dtp.Location = this.dataGridView1.GetCellDisplayRectangle(0, 3, true).Location;
dtp.Size = this.dataGridView1.GetCellDisplayRectangle(0, 3, true).Size;
TextBox Text = new TextBox();
Text.Text = "This my Name";
Text.BackColor = Color.RosyBrown;
this.dataGridView1.Controls.Add(Text);
Text.Location = this.dataGridView1.GetCellDisplayRectangle(0, 4, true).Location;
Text.Size = this.dataGridView1.GetCellDisplayRectangle(0, 4, true).Size;
}