Did you ever wish of having a grid that lets you display and edit data not as rows and columns, but rather as records? A grid that would allow you to build unique user interface solutions? We offer you a new approach to the data grid interface. We offer you DbAltGrid.

DbAltGrid is equipped with most features that are standard among data grid controls and has some rather distinguished features.

• Multiple cell lines per record and multiple text lines per cell. DbAltGrid allows the user to customize free-form layout. The user can adjust height of each line in rows separately. Row height and width of each column can be fine-tuned with a double-click.
• Nested columns. Now you can sort your columns into logical categories, consolidate them and assign to a shared parent column. Parent columns are expandable and collapsible, so this way you can imitate a kind of hierarchical column structure. You can merge several columns and display them in a RTF summary column.
• Two-way data transfer through the clipboard and drag-and-drop using most popular formats, including ones native to MS Office. Ctrl-Click and Shift-Click selection.*
• Inplace editors for common field types, including numeric, Boolean, date, time, memo, RTF memo, lookup, graphic, and MS Access graphic.
• Display graphic in most popular formats (JPEG, GIF, bitmap, metafile, and icon). Icons in data cells and headers.
• Hyperlinks in cells.
• Footer panel to display summary for every column.
• Auto-width mode. Columns are resized proportionally to fill entire client width.
• Hint window customizable for each cell, including title and footer cells.
• Title arrows indicate the column the dataset is sorted against as well as sorting possibility for any column.
• Flicker-free painting. Off-screen painting even by custom drawing in a OnDrawColumnCell event handler.
• Alternate row coloring. Background of odd and even rows can be painted with alternate colors like in ledger books.
• Mouse wheel support. The user can scroll records line-by-line or, when holding down the Ctrl key, page-by-page.*
• Smooth vertical scrolling. Records are scrolled line-by-line when the user clicks a scroll arrow on the vertical scroll bar. The indicator stays on the same row when the user scrolls records page-by-page with scroll bar. Thumb tracking with sequenced datasets.*
• Save and load the grid properties to and from a text file, a stream, a resource file/compiled resource, or the system registry at design-time as well as at runtime. This way you can transfer settings from a DBGrid to a DbAltGrid and vice versa.
• Smart key mapping. Optional Enter to Tab key automatic conversion. If you want, pressing the Down arrow key when the current record is the last record in the dataset does not result in appending a new empty record. It is possible with a hot key use.
• Windows XP themes support.
• Short learning curve. DbAltGrid is fully compatible with the common DBGrid that comes with the VCL. The TDbAltGrid class is a TCustomDBGrid descendant, as TDBGrid is. By migration to DbAltGrid, you will not get any code conflicts. There is an auxiliary component to assist with such a migration.

* With taoDbGrid component which is part of Transfer@Once and provides extra functionality for DbAltGrid. Registered users of DbAltGrid can obtain Transfer@Once free of charge.

Click on the thumbs below to see the screenshots in more detail.

The latest releases of DbAltGrid are versions 1.12 and 2.1. DbAltGrid 1.12 supports Borland Delphi 4, 5, 6, 7, 2005 Win32, 2006 Win32, and Borland C++Builder 4, 5, 6, 2006. DbAltGrid 2.1 supports Delphi 2009, 2010. The package includes the following components with full source code: TDbAltGrid, TdagCalendar, TdagClock, TdagNumPad, TdagCalculator, TdagBoolean, TdagMemo, TdagRichMemo, TdagGraphic, TdagPicture, TdagHyperlink, TdagParent, TdagLookupList, TdagPickGrid, and TdagBackup.

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If you wish to download an evaluation copy of DbAltGrid and the demo programs, you can proceed directly to the download page.