Excel like Filtering in Silverlight DataGrid

Microsoft Excel is a popular product and it’s very common for end-users to expect a similar experience in any grid like control they use. The same goes for the Silverlight DataGrid where users expect a similar experience when it comes to filtering records. To create an excel filtering like experience in a Silverlight DataGrid, I am using a ControlTemplate using which you can add any kind of a UI element like the ComboxBox in the header. Let us get started:

Note: If you are interested in Silverlight development, make sure you check out this article - Microsoft Silverlight 4 Tutorials You Must Read

Step 1: Open VS 2010 and create a new Silverlight project, name it as ‘SL4_ComboBox_DataGrid_Column_Header’. In this project, add a new class file which contains the following classes:

The code above also defines an ObservableCollection<T> Names which stores some names in it. In a real scenario, you can make use of WCF Service call to get distinct names for the TaskAssignedTo value.

Step 2: Open MainPage.xaml and write the following xaml code.

The code shown above defines an instance of the TaskCollection class in UserControl.Resources. These resources also define a ControlTemplate for DataGridColumnHeader to add the ComboBox in it. The ComboBox is bound with the string ObservableCollection<T>. The CheckBox when clicked, applies the ControlTemplate defined in the Resource dictionary under UserControl.Resources.

Step 3: Open MainPage.xaml.cs and write the following code in it.

Note: Please read the comments for each method to understand what the code does.

Step 4: Run the application and the following result will be displayed:

Click on the ‘Filter Task Assigned To’ CheckBox  and the TaskAssignedTo DataGridColumn will display the ComboBox as shown below:

Click on the ComboBox and select the Name from it. Observe the result:

After deselecting the CheckBox, the result is the following:

There you go! We just create an excel like filtering facility in your Silverlight DataGrid.

The entire source  code of this article can be downloaded over here

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Author

Mahesh Sabnis is a DotNetCurry author and Microsoft MVP having over 17 years of experience in IT education and development. He is a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) since 2005 and has conducted various Corporate Training programs for .NET Technologies (all versions). Follow him on twitter @maheshdotnet