Good news for everyone using Infragistics NetAdvantage for ASP.NET. The upcoming 10.2 release will include WebExcelExporter control!

The WebExcelExporter control allows you to automatically export Grid data. No matter  what kind of Infragistics DataGrid you are using (WebDataGrid or WebHierarchicalDataGrid), you can easily achieve your goal to get the data into an Excel™ file, in the format of your choice. The Excel™ file formats that are supported are Excel™ 97 to Excel™ 2003 (all these versions share a common format) and Excel™ 2007.

WebExcelExporter is separate control which lives in Infragistics.Web.UI.GridControls namespace, so you don’t need any additional tag prefixes or namespace declarations in order to use it.

Here is a list of features that are currently supported by WebExcelExporter:

·         ExportMode – defines the way exported files are presented. Files can be either sent to the browser for automatic downloading, or just saved to a WorkBook instance, so you decide what to do with the result

·         Exporting more than one grid at once, with an additional option specifying whether to export all grids in same WorkSheet, or each grid on a separate WorkSheet (default)

·         Exporting only grid data (when you have Paging or VirtualScrolling enabled) or the whole data in data source

·         Exporting into multiple Excel™ file formats (Excel™ 97 / Excel™ 2003 and Excel™ 2007)

·         Exporting styles, so you don’t lose the look and feel of your application

·         Exporting data in provided WorkBook or WorkSheet instance

·         Specifying row offset and column offset in the WorkSheet for exported data

·         Server events, which you can handle to apply your custom logic before or after the data is exported, as well as on each exported row

Before You Begin

In order to compile and run the samples illustrated here, you will need to install NetAdvantage for ASP.NET v. 10.2. You will also need a running instance of SQL Server (either Express or any other edition), and you will need to have the NorthWind data base attached to your SQL Server instance. You can either install the NorthWind data base following instructions at: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa276825%28SQL.80%29.aspx or download the data base directly from: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=06616212-0356-46a0-8da2-eebc53a68034&displaylang=en

Follow these steps:

1)      Create a web page (ASP.NET Web Form) with WebDataGrid bound to some Data Source

2)      Drag a WebExcelExporter control from the Visual Studio Toolbox onto your page:

a.       Set the WebExcelExporter’s property ExportMode to Download

b.      Set the control’s ID property to WebExcelExporter

c.       Set the control’s DownloadName property to “ExportedData”

3)      Drag a Button control from Visual Studio Toolbox onto your page:

a.       Set the button’s ID property to btnExport

b.      Set the control’s Text property to “Export Data”

c.       Set the control’s OnClick to “btnExport_Click”

d.      Define the “btnExport_Click” handler in the code-behind and call one of the WebExcelExporter Export() method overloads

4)      Run the application.

5)      Click the “Export Data” button.

After clicking the “Export Data” button, your browser will ask you whether you want to open or save file named “ExportedData.xls”.

So impatient for the release! Only a few days have left!