MvcJqGrid is a html helper for ASP.NET MVC which eases the implementation of jqGrid in your website or webapplication. The helper contains a fluent interface providing for a clean and readable view. Most of the properties, events and methods from the base classes of jqGrid are implemented in the helper, including paging, sorting and toolbar searching. At this point, editing, treegrids and subgrids are not yet supported.

A modelbinder for handling ajax requests from the grid is also included in the library, you can use your own if you want to. The modelbinder and the helper don't depend on each other.

To showcase the helper a sample application was created which demonstrates various grids with different configurations. The source code from the view is displayed below every grid, which should make it easy to get started. The sample application is included in the source code, you can find a live version here.

One word about the sample data being used. The sample data is contained in a Sql Express Database in the App_Data folder. Make sure you have installed Sql Server Express 2008 R2. The Web Platform Installer sometimes indicates you have installed R2 when actually you only have SP2 installed. More info on StackOverflow.

##NuGet

Install-Package MvcJqGrid

All source code is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License

You need jQuery, jqGrid and the MvcJqGrid helper to get started, all three are available through NuGet. jQuery and jqGrid aren't included in the helper. The helper will work with jqGrid v3.65 or later. If you're using the Download Builder to create your own custom jqGrid package, make sure you select all three base modules (Grid base, Formatter and Custom). You can find a manual on how to install jqgrid here

After installing jqGrid and the helper you can start using the helper in your views. Make sure to include an using/import statement to the top of the viewpage that will use the helper:

Razor:
@using MvcJqGrid

WebForms:
<%@ Import Namespace=" MvcJqGrid" %>

If you're planning on using the grid on multiple pages in your project, it's possible to add the reference to your web.config, which enables the helper in all your views. For the Razor view engine use the web.config file located in the Views folder, for the WebForms view engine you can use the web.config located in the root of your application:

<add namespace="MvcJqGrid" />

Creating a basic grid with the Razor view engine:

@(Html.Grid("basic")
	.SetCaption("Basic Grid")
	.AddColumn(new Column("CustomerId")
		.SetLabel("Id"))
	.AddColumn(new Column("Name"))
	.AddColumn(new Column("Company"))
	.AddColumn(new Column("EmailAddress"))
	.AddColumn(new Column("Last Modified"))
	.AddColumn(new Column("Telephone"))
	.SetUrl("/Home/GridData/")
	.SetAutoWidth(true)
	.SetRowNum(10)
	.SetRowList(new int[]{10,15,20,50})
	.SetViewRecords(true)
	.SetPager("pager"))

Creating a basic grid with the WebForms view engine:

<%= Html.Grid("basic")
	.SetCaption("Basic Grid")
	.AddColumn(new Column("CustomerId")
		.SetLabel("Id"))
	.AddColumn(new Column("Name"))
	.AddColumn(new Column("Company"))
	.AddColumn(new Column("EmailAddress"))
	.AddColumn(new Column("Last Modified"))
	.AddColumn(new Column("Telephone"))
	.SetUrl("/Home/GridData/")
	.SetAutoWidth(true)
	.SetRowNum(10)
	.SetRowList(new int[]{10,15,20,50})
	.SetViewRecords(true)
	.SetPager("pager")
%>

The grid is available in the Html class as a regular Html helper. The grid's constructor takes one parameter, which is used to set the id of the grid. All additional properties, methods and events are available through method chaining. The order in which you call the methods doesn't influence the behavior of the grid.

After the grid is rendered in the client, the grid issues an AJAX callback to request the data. The SetUrl method points to an action on your controller, which should either return a json or an xml response containing the requested data (responsetype is set using the SetDataType property, default is json). The exact format of the response can be found here.

The helper's only responsibility is to create the appropriate clientside Html and JavaScript to generate the grid. It's the responsibility of the controller to generate the correct response to the request for data send by the grid.

For more information on creating grids, take a look at the sample application hosted here.

A custom modelbinder is included in the library (created by Ilya Builuk) to catch all the request parameters jqGrid sends to the controller. This modelbinder parses all arguments send by jqGrid into a strongly typed object called GridSettings. The definition of the action inside your controller when using this modelbinder would look something like this.

public JsonResult GridData(GridSettings gridSettings)
{
	...
}