TelerikSPRadGrid Q2 2011 New Features and Improvements

The Q2 2011 release is already in sight and bringing along some new features and fair improvements for the TelerikSPRadGrid Web Part.

Faster Data-Binding to SharePoint Lists

SPRadGrid’s data-binding to SharePoint Lists has been completely reworked to take advantage of the Dynamic Linq library and the SharePoint Collaborative Markup Language. SPRadGrid’s filtering and sorting expressions are now converted into CAML queries to produce quicker data retrieval whereas the paging operations have been re-tailored along the lines of RadGrid’s custom paging so that no uncalled-for data is pulled from the underlying data store. All of this call-up information is used to produce an IQueryable object that transfers the data into the grid control bestowing upon the user the even greater performance optimization of expression trees. Even large SharePoint lists containing more than 5000 (the item count limit recommended by MS) are being manipulated with no difficulty by SPRadGrid – a performance speed-up which is even more tangible when it comes to the next cool improvement: client-side data-binding.

Client-side binding

One of RadGrid’s outstanding features is arguably its capability to bind to data on the client and produce as a result blazing fast response times. As of the Q2 release SPRadGrid is closely following into the steps of its WebForms counterpart when it comes to client-side data-binding. Now the user has the option to use client-side data-binding for SharePoint lists and Excel files residing within SharePoint document libraries. All that needs to be done is to check the Enable WebService Databinding property from the tool part settings of the Web Part:

Client-side data-binding, however, does not support data-editing and grouping and therefore is more suitable for data display scenarios incorporating filtering and sorting operations. For a live example of SPRadGrid’s client-side data-binding do visit the following url (username: hostingsp2010\sp2010visitor; password: sp2010visitor):

http://sharepoint.telerik.com/aspnet-ajax/web-parts/Pages/Client-side-Binding.aspx

Binding to External Lists

It’d be no exaggeration to say that one of the most prominent and compelling capabilities of SharePoint 2010 is the Business Connectivity Services allowing the display and editing of data coming from external systems and data providers. This salient trait of SP’s relies heavily on external lists to give the end user the chance to manipulate external data with almost no effort. It’d be much better, however, if this external data could take advantage of RadGrid’s powerful features to be filtered, sorted, paged, grouped… and displayed in a visually appealing manner. Binding to external lists is exactly what SPRadGrid will be sporting as a new feature of its after the Q2 release. External Lists are treated by SharePoint as regular SharePoint lists and as such are part of a given SharePoint site/subsite. Therefore, TelerikSPRadGrid will list them in the ToolPart list combo or the SPRadGrid Designer SPLists explorer tree along with the regular SharePoint lists and you can pick one from there to bind SPRadGrid to the external data store. Any change to the data in the SPRadGrid control will be automatically reflected into the external data provider. And here is a live example of binding SPRadGrid to an external list:

http://sharepoint.telerik.com/aspnet-ajax/web-parts/Pages/External-Lists-Binding.aspx

Thank you for taking a glimpse at the new Q2 2011 features for the Telerik SPRadGrid Web Part that will be included in the Telerik SharePoint Acceleration Kit as well.