As everybody knows, Windows 8 is coming very soon and now a
wave of developers and companies are making a big effort to implement
their products for this new platform with its new style, etc. This
desktop applications are based on Windows Presentation Foundation (or
WPF) that it is a computer-software graphical subsystem for rendering
user interfaces in Windows-based applications. WPF employs XAML, a
derivative of XML, to define and link various UI elements. WPF
applications can also be deployed as standalone desktop programs, or
hosted as an embedded object in a website. WPF aims to unify a number of
common user interface elements, such as 2D/3D rendering, fixed and
adaptive documents, typography, vector graphics, runtime animation, and
pre-rendered media. These elements can then be linked and manipulated
based on various events, user interactions, and data bindings. Microsoft
Silverlight provides functionality that is mostly a subset of WPF to
provide embedded web controls comparable to Adobe Flash. 3D runtime
rendering is supported in Silverlight since Silverlight 5
Now everybody are seeing that with the controls that
Windows is giving inside of Visual Studio 2010 are not fitting their
needs or to accomplish them they need more time to develop exactly what
they exactly need. But, fortunately we have another options that are
doing much easier our lives. They are third party controls with an huge
extension of choices, as Infragistics, DevExpress, Mindscape, Telerik,
etc.
<Window x:Class="WpfApplication1.Window1"
Xmlns = "http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
Xmlns:x = "http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
Xmlns:telerik = "http://schemas.telerik.com/2008/xaml/presentation"
Xmlns:local = "clr-namespace:WpfApplication1"
Title="Window1">
<Grid>
<Grid.Resources>
<ObjectDataProvider x:Key = "Customers"
ObjectType = "{x:Type local:NorthwindDataContext}" MethodName = "get_Customers">
</ObjectDataProvider>
</Grid.Resources>
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition Width="100" />
<ColumnDefinition Width="100" />
<ColumnDefinition />
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<Grid.RowDefinitions>
<RowDefinition Height="30" />
<RowDefinition Height="10" />
<RowDefinition />
</Grid.RowDefinitions>
<ComboBox x:Name="ComboBox1" SelectedIndex="0">
<ComboBoxItem Content="Excel"/>
<ComboBoxItem Content="Word"/>
<ComboBoxItem Content="Csv"/>
</ComboBox>
<Button Content="Export" Grid.Column="1" Click="Button_Click" />
<telerik:RadGridView Name="RadGridView1" ShowGroupPanel="False"
Grid.ColumnSpan="3" Grid.Row="2"
ItemsSource="{Binding Source={StaticResource Customers}}" />
</Grid>
</Window>
After this, we have to write the code to export in the “.cs” file of the Xaml view, with the Button_Click event, that it is calling the method to export the gridview:
private void Button_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
string content = "";
ComboBoxItem comboItem = ComboBox1.SelectedItem as ComboBoxItem;
string selectedItem = comboItem.Content.ToString();
if (selectedItem == "Excel")
{
extension = "xls";
content = RadGridView1.ToHtml(true);
}
else if (selectedItem == "Word")
{
extension = "doc";
content = RadGridView1.ToHtml(true);
}
else if (selectedItem == "Csv")
{
extension = "csv";
content = RadGridView1.ToCsv(true);
}
string path = String.Format("Export.{0}", extension);
if (File.Exists(path)) { File.Delete(path);
}
using (FileStream fs = File.Create(path))
{
Byte[] info = Encoding.Default.GetBytes(content);
fs.Write(info, 0, info.Length);
}
}
As you can see, this process is very simple and easy, but it doesn’t stop here. Telerik have an huge control collections also for another technologies, as well as, Silverlight, Ajax, ASP .NET, Mobilphones and for the most recent Metro Styles of Windows 8 for the new Visual Studio 2012.
I add also the project example to this post to download and see with more detail how I accomplished it.
I hope I have helped you.
