FlexGrid or True DBGrid?

ComponentOne offers two grid components in WinForms Edition, FlexGrid and True DBGrid. While both of these are robust and easy-to-use grids allowing you to browse, edit, add, delete, and manipulate tabular data, they still have their own strengths and capabilities.

Both ComponentOne WinForms Edition grids can be used in bound as well as unbound mode, but C1FlexGrid allows you to work more easily in unbound mode. With C1FlexGrid, you can customize trees and make use of its cell merging capabilities. FlexGrid is also apt for deriving a customized grid.

If you are planning to develop or migrate to .NET 6 or higher, it is recommended to use C1FlexGrid. While we will continue to support C1TrueDBGrid in .NET 6, it no longer receives new enhancements and features like C1FlexGrid.

Comparing ComponentOne Grids with MS DataGridView

This section gives you a quick comparison between the two ComponentOne WinForms Edition grids and the standard MS DataGridView available for WinForms platform. For easy navigation, we have broadly divided these features into different categories. Click on the corresponding category in the right hand pane or scroll down to know more about availability of a particular feature.

Data Binding

Features	FlexGrid	TrueDBGrid	MS DataGridView
Binding Data Sources	✓	✓	✓
Binding Data Sources with hierarchical data relations	With custom code	✓
Unbound data storage and manipulations	✓	✓	✓

Data Presentation

Features	FlexGrid	TrueDBGrid	MS DataGridView
Hierarchical Styles	With custom code	✓
TreeView-like Styles	✓	✓
MultiLine Data View		✓
Grouping	✓	✓
Built-in Drag And Drop	✓	✓
Horizontal and Vertical Interactive Splits		✓
Child grids within master grid support	✓	✓
Drop-Down Objects Support	✓	✓
Drop-Down Multicolumn Object support	✓	✓
Drop-Down Multicolumn Bindable and Sortable Object support		✓

Data Exchange

Features	FlexGrid	TrueDBGrid	MS DataGridView
Export Data (Delimited Text, XLS and XLSX)	✓	✓
Export Data in other formats (PDF, HTML, RTF, JPG and other)		✓
Load data from Excel files	✓	✓
Enhanced Printing data from grid and Print Preview support	✓	✓

Cell Manipulations

Features	FlexGrid	TrueDBGrid	MS DataGridView
In-Cell Objects	✓	✓	✓
Enhanced Cell Editing with Custom Editors	✓	✓
Merging Cells and Rows	✓	✓
Customize Cells Merging	✓
Drag And Drop Columns and rows	✓	✓
Automatic Cell Sizing	✓	✓	✓
Fixed, Non-scrolling Columns	✓	✓	✓
Excel-style Cell Selection	✓	✓
Customize each Cell Rendering	✓
Zooming Cells	✓	✓
Run-Time CellTips	✓	✓
Data Manipulations with Cell Ranges	✓

Layout and Styling

Features	FlexGrid	TrueDBGrid	MS DataGridView
Visual Styles Support	✓	✓	✓
Dynamic Support of 38 Decoration Themes	✓	✓
Office 2007 and 2010 Styling	✓	✓
Alternating Row Colors	✓	✓	✓
Customizable Cell Border Style	✓	✓
Add Special Drawing Effects	✓	✓
Data-Sensitive Display	✓	✓

Input and Navigation

Features	FlexGrid	TrueDBGrid	MS DataGridView
Input Masking	✓	✓	✓
Simplify Data Input	✓	✓
Automatic Data Translation	✓	✓
Spell Checking support	✓	✓
Customizable Keyboard Navigation and keys behavior	✓	✓
Right-To-Left navigation	✓	✓	✓
Touch Support	✓	✓	✓
Clipboard support	✓	✓	✓
Rich Scrolling Capabilities	✓	✓

Data Manipulations

Features	FlexGrid	TrueDBGrid	MS DataGridView
Sorting	✓	✓	✓
Multi-column Sorting	✓
Built-in Data Filtering	✓	✓
Extended and Conditional Filtering	✓	✓
Customizable filter form	✓
Additional Filter Bar row		✓
Multi-language Filtering	✓	✓
AutoSearch	✓
Range Aggregates	✓	✓

Localization

Features	FlexGrid	TrueDBGrid	MS DataGridView
Right-To-Left support	✓	✓	✓
.Net localization support	✓	✓	✓
Regional settings support	✓	✓	✓

Other Features

Features	FlexGrid	TrueDBGrid	MS DataGridView
Optimize performance for displaying large amount of data in bound and unbound mode	✓	✓
Just-In-Time Data Loading	✓	✓	✓
Server-side Data Virtualization with C1DataSource	✓	✓	✓
Automatic Lookup Columns with C1DataSource	✓		✓
Design-time extended support	✓	✓
Assembly size	1508 K	2108 K	Part of System.Windows.Forms