Hi Shaolin,

Changing the data type of UltraDataColumn to “Object” type might not cause any performance issues but it might affect the Grid filtering and sorting functionality. If you are not implementing any sorting or filtering for your Grid columns then changing the column type to “Object” might not hinder the Grid's performance.

Please let me know if I may be of further assistance.

Sincerely,
Sahaja Kokkalagadda
Associate Software Developer

Hi Team,

Is anyone looking at my questions?

Best Regards,
Shaolin

Hi, 

I'm afraid I am still not sure what you are asking. 

You cannot change the DataType of a cell or a bound column. 

The grid has built-in filtering capability, but it seems like you are trying to use your own custom filtering with a row in the data source that can accept values that are not of the same data type as the rest of the cells in that column. There is no way to do that, either. Which means you would have to set every field in your grid to a data type like string or object that can accept any value of any type. This will cause all sorts of problems, though. Many of the editors will not work with a string or an object. So I don't think any of these approaches are a viable solution. 

Why can't you use the FilterRow in the grid? What kind of functionality do you need that the filter row does not already provide?

If you really need to handle the filtering yourself in some complex way that the existing filter row cannot do, then I think the best way to do that might be to implement your filtering UI in some other control or controls outside of the grid. 

For example, you could create a second grid that has a single row and position it on top of the "real" grid. The second grid could be bound to a data source that has the same column names but is bound to a table where every field is an object. You would then have to write code to synchronize the two grids scrolling and filtering, etc. 

Frankly, though, I recommend that you reconsider using the built-in filtering if you can. What you are trying to do is going to be extremely complex and difficult any way you look at it. 

Hi Mike,

Thanks so much for your explanation!

My filter row is very simple. All cells on the filter row can only have a text editor and it will take any text. Once the text in the editor is changed, the event handler will parse the text and validate whether the text is a valid filtering expression for the column. We do have our own filtering logic applied to the data source, so we only use filter row to allow user to enter an filter expression. I noticed that the cell of on the built-in filter row have buttons and a drop-down combo-box, which we do not need. Do you have any sample to do this?

Your help is greatly appreciated!

Best Regards,
Shaolin

Hi Shaolin, 

There are properties on the Override to remove the dropdown and buttons from the filter cells: 

 private void ultraGrid1_InitializeLayout(object sender, Infragistics.Win.UltraWinGrid.InitializeLayoutEventArgs e)
 {
 var layout = e.Layout;
 var band = layout.Bands[0];
 var ov = layout.Override;
ov.AllowRowFiltering = DefaultableBoolean.True;
 ov.FilterUIType = FilterUIType.FilterRow;
 
 // Remove the dropdown button
 ov.FilterOperandStyle = FilterOperandStyle.Edit;
// Remove the operator button
 ov.FilterOperatorLocation = FilterOperatorLocation.Hidden;
// Remove the clear button. 
 ov.FilterClearButtonLocation = FilterClearButtonLocation.Hidden;
// Tell the grid not to do anything with the filters
 ov.RowFilterAction = RowFilterAction.None;
 }

But I'm not sure this is a viable solution. The grid is still going to try to take the text that the user types into the cell and apply a filter. So it might try to cast the value into the correct data type and build the FilterConditions, which you really don't want. I might be wrong... maybe the FilterConditions will just get created with a string and you can then handle the FilterRow event to examine the filter conditions and do your own filtering. It's worth a try, I guess. 

Hi Mike,

Thanks so much!

I will give it a try.

Best Regards,
Shaolin