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

This article has been editorially reviewed by Suprotim Agarwal.

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