UltraWebGrid to WebDataGrid Migration

It has been a while since the introduction of the new ASP.NET controls based on the Aikido framework. It brought the developers a product meeting latest standards in performance and modern browser support. This turned into a major challenge for applications that need to migrate from the Ultra ASP.NET controls to the new Aikido control. We did our best trying to help developers and make the migration process as seamless as possible – we posted content on our blog, we introduced some useful resources like the Cheat Sheet that provides a quick-access guidance to the new features that were introduced in both ASP.NET AJAX grids, styling guide and all of these along with an ongoing support for the old controls. However, there are still developers that are yet to upgrade their applications due to the challenges of modern web.

It has always been our mission to delight our customers and еаse their work, while trying to achieve great functionalities with the help of our products. To do this, and to assist them through the upgrading process, we will expand our documentations and we will emphasize on the most popular for ASP.NET WebForms toolkit – WebDataGrid and the WebHierarchicalDataGrid.

This article aims to show you how to achieve a smooth transition from the old UltraWebGrid to the new WebDataGrid/WebHierarchicalDataGrid based on our Aikido framework. I hope that all documents referenced below will help you save time and energy while using our ASP.NET grids and improve your daily work with the Infragistics toolset.

Let’s continue with new topics below, which aim to explain in more details how a feature could be implemented along with code snippets and explanations.

When migrating to the WebDataGrid/WebHierarchicalDataGrid, you may not find 1-1 equivalence for some functionalities you’ve been using in the UltraWebGrid. In all of these cases the functionality is available in the new grid, but is achieved in a slightly difference manner. After all the new grid follows entirely different approaches for styling, back-end and front-end implementations, ajax capabilities, loading of data and a lot more! Also take advantage of our forum community, online samples and blogs, after all “Those who dare seek, shall find what they are seeking for”.

Enough with the sweet talks, let’s see how to migrate to the following features:

• Activation
• Sorting
• Filtering
• Selection
• Row Adding
• Row Delete
• Column Moving
• Editor providers
• Automatic load on demand
• Empty template
• Hidden columns
• Manual load on demand
• Multi-row summaries
• PDF export
• Summary
• Outlook GroupBy
• Custom Outlook GroupBy

Some of the commonly asked questions that we get are “Should I migrate to the new WebDataGrid?”, “If I start to use WDG, would it be supported under IE 11 or even Edge?”, “Is it easy to maintain and extend grids functionalities?”. And the answer to all of them is simply, yes!  

Our grid is supported by all browsers out there, using of each feature is intuitive, easy and will help you to achieve almost anything.

In conclusion, don’t be afraid to implement something new, or to start using entirely different approach in order to achieve what you want.