Question

Adding a progress bar to a DataGridView in .NET

Asked by: burningmace

I'm trying to add a progress bar to a DataGridView, but it seems impossible. I've seen a few rather poor examples that I can't get working, and the custom controls that do it all seem to be expensive and I don't want to pay for one.

I'm populating the DGV manually and not from a database, and I need to be able to re-order and resize the columns and rows, as well as update the bar in real time. I see this feature commonly in applications, it seems odd that Microsoft chose not to add a simple ProgressBarCell class.

Thanks in advance.

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Asked On
2009-10-14 at 13:04:35ID24812705
Tags

datagridview

,

data grid view

,

progress

,

.net

Topics

Microsoft Visual C#.Net

,

Microsoft Visual Basic.Net

,

.NET Framework 3.x versions

Participating Experts
2
Points
500
Comments
13

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Answers

 

by: TheLearnedOnePosted on 2009-10-14 at 13:24:32ID: 25574747

There have been suggestions to Microsoft to include a DataGridViewProgressBarColumn, but nothing has come of that yet.  

I have seen unsupported examples, like this one:

Sample Code: DataGridView progress bar column
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winformsdatacontrols/thread/769ca9d6-1e9d-4d76-8c23-db535b2f19c2

 

by: nullcoryPosted on 2009-10-14 at 13:24:41ID: 25574751

Can you give a little more information?

First suggestion would be to handle the OnDataBinding event of the GridView and then depending on how you are manually creating the data, Stepping through the Progress bar accordingly.


Grid_OnDataBinding(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
for(loop conditions
{
...
ProgressBar.PerformStep();
}
}

                                              
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by: burningmacePosted on 2009-10-18 at 10:51:03ID: 25600672

When I tried that class none of the grid lines were drawn and the rest of my text in the DGV flickered horribly. Am I doing something wrong?

 

by: TheLearnedOnePosted on 2009-10-19 at 05:44:47ID: 25604616

I didn't try that example myself, since I have no need, but there might be other examples to be found for creating a custom column with a progress bar that wouldn't flicker.

 

by: burningmacePosted on 2009-10-22 at 12:16:47ID: 25637892

I've been looking for one for ages, and I still can't find anything useful. I see this function in hundreds of programs (to name a few: uTorrent, Xilisoft Video Converter, iTunes, Photoshop, Illustrator, Wavelab) and I can't believe that it is such a hard task to make a progress bar in a DGV that doesn't flicker or look crappy.

 

by: TheLearnedOnePosted on 2009-10-22 at 12:58:57ID: 25638325

Sometimes, you can hit a boundary for what is reasonable to ask of a control, and I can believe that is a hard task for the DataGridView, since you have to jump through a lot of hoops just to add a custom column type.

 

by: burningmacePosted on 2009-10-22 at 14:38:38ID: 25639337

True, but the demand for one to be included as a column type in .NET is high, so I'm surprised that MS haven't done it already. Plus I don't see why so many other programs can do it and there's no simple solution when a developer wants to add one to their program.

 

by: TheLearnedOnePosted on 2009-10-22 at 17:12:16ID: 25640279

I don't think that Windows Forms is Microsoft's priority right now, so I understand and I am not surprised.  I don't think the demand is high enough to move that mountain.

I am assuming that you have tried double-buffering to reduce flickering (I didn't try that example code)...

 

by: burningmacePosted on 2009-10-23 at 04:16:21ID: 25643233

For some reason the calls to Paint for each cell take an age to complete. I timed the difference, and it's roughly 14ms per cell when it's not processing a progress cel, and 60ms+ on a cell that draws progressl. This seems ludicrous - a refresh rate on cells of only 71Hz. On a 6 column DGV with one progress column and 10 rows, it took a little over 1.1 seconds to draw the entire thing. Upon resizng a column, the DGV flickers so badly that you can't see the contents.

 

by: TheLearnedOnePosted on 2009-10-23 at 06:33:52ID: 25644224

I use the Infragistics UltraWinGrid/UltraWebGrid, which has a progress bar column type, so I don't have a need to use the DataGridView, but I do feel your pain...

 

by: TheLearnedOnePosted on 2009-10-23 at 06:48:24ID: 25644364

Test this (not perfect, but might be a step in the right direction):

using System;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Drawing.Printing;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Windows.Forms.VisualStyles;
 
public class DataGridViewProgressBarColumn : DataGridViewColumn
{
 
    public DataGridViewProgressBarColumn()
        : base(new DataGridViewProgressBarCell())
    {
    }
 
    public override DataGridViewCell CellTemplate
    {
        get { return base.CellTemplate; }
        set
        {
 
            // Ensure that the cell used for the template is a CalendarCell. 
            if ((value != null) && !value.GetType().IsAssignableFrom(typeof(DataGridViewProgressBarCell)))
            {
                throw new InvalidCastException("Must be a DataGridViewProgressBarCell");
            }
 
            base.CellTemplate = value;
        }
    }
 
}
 
public class DataGridViewProgressBarCell : DataGridViewTextBoxCell
{
 
    protected override void Paint(Graphics graphics, Rectangle clipBounds, Rectangle cellBounds, int rowIndex, DataGridViewElementStates cellState, object value, object formattedValue, string errorText, DataGridViewCellStyle cellStyle, DataGridViewAdvancedBorderStyle advancedBorderStyle,
        DataGridViewPaintParts paintParts)
    {
        base.Paint(graphics, clipBounds, cellBounds, rowIndex, cellState, value, formattedValue, errorText, cellStyle, advancedBorderStyle, DataGridViewPaintParts.Background);
 
        base.PaintBorder(graphics, clipBounds, cellBounds, cellStyle, advancedBorderStyle);
 
        Rectangle rect = cellBounds;
        rect.Inflate(-3, -3);
 
        rect.Width = (int)value * ProgressBarRenderer.ChunkThickness;
 
        ProgressBarRenderer.DrawHorizontalBar(graphics, rect);
        ProgressBarRenderer.DrawHorizontalChunks(graphics, rect);
 
    }
 
    public override object DefaultNewRowValue
    {
        // Use the current date and time as the default value. 
        get { return string.Empty; }
    }
 
}

                                              
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by: burningmacePosted on 2009-10-23 at 08:23:08ID: 25645303

Thanks, that helped me figure out how to solve it. The ProgressBarRenderer didn't work properly though, it overflowed and was way too big for the cell.
I replaced lines 47 through 50 of your code with stuff to just draw a filled rectangle, and it worked without flickering. Furthermore, I added a line to make the ToolTipText show the percentage as a numeric value. It's rather ugly but it does the job.

           if (value.ToString().Length == 0) { value = 0; }
            float percent = (float)((int)value) / 100;
            if (percent > 1) percent = 1;
            if (percent < 0) percent = 0;
            rect.Width = (int)((float)rect.Width * percent);
            graphics.FillRectangle(Brushes.DarkBlue, rect);
 
            this.ToolTipText = Math.Round(percent * 100, 0).ToString() + "%";

                                              
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by: TheLearnedOnePosted on 2009-10-23 at 08:34:09ID: 25645415

The overflow is because the rectangle bounds are calculated from ChunkThickness:

       rect.Width = (int)value * ProgressBarRenderer.ChunkThickness;
 
       ProgressBarRenderer.DrawHorizontalBar(graphics, rect);
       ProgressBarRenderer.DrawHorizontalChunks(graphics, rect);

This can be tightened down to get a more exact measurement.  The example code was just a proof-of-concept.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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