Grid control of choice?

[kpeters58]

Hi everyone,

what grid control would you recommend?

Should be OS independent, have row headers, alternating row colors, handle a few thousand rows with grace.

Does not have to be free and column sorts would be great.

Thanks for all suggestions,

Kai

Developers: Don't be shy & strut your stuff...

[Zach]

I'm not sure if one exists that meets all those criterea?

I know several people are working on new advanced grid controls though.

[Kuron]

I had to discontinue my Leaderboard program I wrote in PureBasic because the grid control I was using was discontinued and replaced by another one, which was discontinued and replaced by another one, which was also discontinued and replaced by another one. Ie., the Mark Sibly development philosophy: when in need of cash, abandon an existing product and create a new product that is similar.

I went to look at the grid control I was using with PowerBASIC which was RaGrid. However the website for it (http://radasm.cherrytree.at/) is MIA. The person behind it was actively involved in the FreeBASIC community at one point, so perhaps there may be info to find on RaGrid in the FreeBASIC community.

There are a couple of grid controls for PowerBASIC that vary in price range and are very well supported and have been around for a long time. Those should be very easy to port for use with PureBasic. Most of the other grid controls I am aware of are .NET based and would be very hard to port to PureBasic.

[srod]

Brice, you are clearly talking about my grid control and that is totally wrong and, quite offensive actually. I seem to have explained this to you on a number of occasions, but for some reason you choose not to listen.

My EsGRID control is the original control and is the one that you used in your leader board program. It is still available, still current, still updated... it has never been abandoned and never will be. EsGRID carries no additional costs for all existing users, including yourself.

Let me run you through the history of my grid controls... again...

• The first incarnation was called eGrid which was available for some time. I was eventually asked by a Powerbasic user to rename it because of a name clash which I eventually did to EsGRID. All users who purchased the original eGrid control are still entitled to the latest version of EsGRID, including yourself.
  
  EsGRID was upgraded massively at one point and the price increased, but all existing license holders were upgraded for free. I seem to recall giving you a free license for EsGRID at this point, though you did later pay for the license. That license is still valid.

• In need of additional features myself which EsGRID could not provide (because EsGRID is based upon a Windows ListView control) I then created ExGRID. This is not a replacement for EsGRID, but is built atop of EsGRID. Hence EsGRID will never die.
  
  Now the ExGRID upgrade was a hell of a lot of work and I was not about to give that work away for free. I offered an upgrade to all existing EsGRID users at a ridiculously low price. I made it clear, however, (and still do) that there is no need to upgrade to ExGRID! ExGRID is a rather specialised control and most applications can get away without its enhanced features and can do without the additional overheads which ExGRID brings to the table.
  
  I myself still use EsGRID far more than I do ExGRID.
  
  I held the ridiculously low upgrade price for about 2 years before finally, with the introduction of tBOX, increasing it slightly.

• Recently I added a property-box control to the mix (tBOX). This is freely available for all licensed users of ExGRID.
  
  tBOX is neither an upgrade or a replacement for EsGRID or ExGRID but a totally different control serving an entirely different purpose.

Coming soon will be a cross-platform grid control and guess what, FREE to all existing license holders.

This week I have had 3 people purchase upgrades to ExGRID. To all I offered a complete refund, explaining that if all they really wanted was access to the latest version of EsGRID then I would simply e-mail it to them. I have explained previously that maintaining a separate EsGRID download section is no longer viable for me and I choose instead to send out EsGRID by e-mail. All 3 declined the offer.


In short, Brice, your leaderboard program is still valid because the EsGRID control at it's heart is still maintained and is still available and kept fully up to date. I have offered twice now to send you the latest version of EsGRID which will not break your program and contains a few bug fixes and the like, but you have chosen to ignore me.

What I will say is that I have changed the licensing model a couple of times over the years, but I have never levied any kind of additional charge on existing users of my grids (aside from asking for a small upgrade price for those wishing to upgrade to ExGRID). Altering the licensing model was more down to my own inexperience of selling software than anything else, as I originally selected to use an unsustainable (and very naive) model. If this is the source of your misconceptions then I apologise.

Now Brice, in terms of being out to make money as it were, then sure, I have to pay my bills and, well, my coding efforts do have to weigh in and earn their keep to some extent. I simply do not have the luxury of having pots of cash to play with. However, that is not to say that I am out to rip people off in any way, that would be abhorrent in the extreme. I have given loads to this community in terms of freely available utilities etc. and will continue to do so.

Huh, compare the amount of utilities that I have released for free (as you can see over at the nxSoftware site) with the number that you have made available! Can't say as I recall you providing anything but harsh quips and offensive comments to be honest!

@kpeters58 : sorry to hijack the thread.

[Kiffi]

Coming soon will be a cross-platform grid control

Yesss!

(based on the CanvasGadget?)

Greetings ... Kiffi

[srod]

Coming soon will be a cross-platform grid control

Yesss!

based on the CanvasGadget?

In part yes, but some platform dependent routines are required as well.

[Zach]

I'm wondering about something related to your licensing/distribution.

As a brand new user, if I purchased a license in the future (it seems its one fee for all controls in a single "Pack" ?) in the download section would I have access to downloads for all the controls? Or would I still have to receive EsGrid via e-mail request? Or is it simply the legacy EsGrid customers who don't upgrade who need to receive it via email?

Its just a little confusing I guess.
I've been considering whether or not I want/need a grid control for anything right now, or in the future, so I might want to purchase a license one day. I might wait until you release the cross-platform version of the tools though, unless it would be cheaper to purchase in the near future because of a price increase.

[srod]

Hi Zach,

as you say the only option for new users is to purchase the entire grid controls package. I did this for convenience really. In these cases it is very straight forward, new users would be given access to the members area from which they can download all the controls (including EsGRID) in one single package and then, subsequently, re-download whenever there is an update etc.

I must admit that things did get a little confusing because of my original (and somewhat barmy) licensing method. Add to this the eventual introduction of ExGRID and, yes, people did get a wee bit confused. I even had some people buy additional licenses thinking this was the only way to secure continued access to EsGRID, which was just incorrect! I of course refunded all such purchases immediately.

The situation right now is that I have a few original EsGRID customers who have no need to upgrade to ExGRID. That is fine and I would never dream of trying to persuade them to do so. The fact is that the enhanced ExGRID does come with some penalties in terms of performance and resources etc. and so it is just not suited to many applications. EsGRID really should be the first point of call if one of my grids is being considered for use in an application.

In order to avoid two separate download sections though I now furnish updates of EsGRID to these 'legacy' customers via e-mail. All other users simply use the download section.

All a bit unfortunate really.

I must admit that I am considering making EsGRID freely available for non-commercial use and to simply keep ExGRID and the tBOX property box control for purchase etc. I'll chew it over a bit more.

[Zach]

Cool, thanks for explaining things.
I am also interested in the Property Box so I would be buying a license either way. When the spare cash mysteriously appears in my bank account

[Kuron]

My EsGRID control is the original control and is the one that you used in your leader board program.

This is incorrect. I used eGRID. I have never used or bought EsGRID.

In short, Brice, your leaderboard program is still valid because the EsGRID control at it's heart is still maintained and is still available and kept fully up to date.

This is incorrect as I never used EsGRID. I think you are confused by my "quote" on your site which was a quote for "eGRID". You changed the quote to be an endorsement to "EsGRID" once EsGRID was released even though I never used it and it was not the product I was praising.

Altering the licensing model was more down to my own inexperience of selling software than anything else, as I originally selected to use an unsustainable (and very naive) model. If this is the source of your misconceptions then I apologise.

Name changes more than anything else did it for me: eGRID, EsGRID, ExGRID. Trying to make heads or tails out of it is like a badly written Abbott and Costello skit:

The property grid is part of ExGRID.
So I need to buy that?
No, there is a special upgrade available for EsGRID owners and it is built on EsGRID.
So I need to buy EsGRID?
No, you can't buy it anymore.
So I need to buy the full ExGRID package?
No, you already own EsGRID.
I never bought EsGRID.
You own EsGRID.
I tried my download info for eGRID. My download info doesn't work.
eGRID isn't available anymore, it was replaced by EsGRID.
So I need to buy EsGRID?
You can't buy, EsGRID, is was replaced by ExGRID. You only need to buy the upgrade to ExGRID.


Thankfully I still keep my hair in a military cut, because if it was long enough to grab, I would be ripping it out by the roots right now.

[Kuron]

MyLittleGrid might work for your needs. Although it only mentions PowerBASIC on the site, there were headers for it on the Emergence Basic site, so it should be easy enough to port to PureBasic. There is a demo to download and try.

EGrid Pro was nice at one time, but it changed ownership earlier this year. The website is absolutely horrid. There is not a demo and there are not any screen shots or detailed information available.

[fsw]

...I went to look at the grid control I was using with PowerBASIC which was RaGrid. However the website for it (http://radasm.cherrytree.at/) is MIA. The person behind it was actively involved in the FreeBASIC community at one point, so perhaps there may be info to find on RaGrid in the FreeBASIC community...

Ketil Olsen's custom controls can be found here:
http://radasm.cherrytree.at/download/?category=24

But they haven't been updated for a while...

No problems accessing the webpage.

[Kuron]

Ketil Olsen's custom controls can be found here:
http://radasm.cherrytree.at/download/?category=24

But they haven't been updated for a while...

No problems accessing the webpage.

Weird... I have been trying to access that page for months but it wouldn't work. Used other sites to check that one and it was down for them, too. Working fine now, though. I highly recommend RA-Grid. It is one of the best grid controls available.

[srod]

Kuron, EsGRID is eGrid... it is the same control and the same code. You bought eGrid, therefore you bought EsGRID. I was essentially forced to rename it because the author of eGrid Pro (or whatever the Powerbasic control is called) asked me to and I did it out of respect. Elias' grid was around long before mine. This is the only occasion I have ever renamed one of my grid controls.

But then I have made this clear on umpteen occasions. It means that your praise for the original egrid was praise for EsGRID. It also means that EsGRID will run fine in your leaderboard program.

But oh well, I've only explained that 100 times or more. You do not need to buy anything, you do not need to use ExGRID; that particular control will certainly not run with your program. ExGRID was not designed as a replacement for EsGRID and it is not a replacement. As I've offered repeatedly; you want the latest version of EsGRID then provide me with an e-mail address and it will be winging it's way towards you as soon as I am able.

As poor as my original licensing arrangement was, I don't think really that it warrants this much confusion. Most users seem not to have experienced any problems. A couple of instances along the way, but nothing I didn't sort out as soon as I was aware of the problem.

[IdeasVacuum]

Hi Kuron, sRod. Now is a good time to settle differences?

Kuron, sRod has admitted that things got confused - hell srod, even your website is a bit confusing, I gave up trying to get the Arctic Reports trial

Kuron:

This is incorrect. I used eGRID. I have never used or bought EsGRID.

sRod explained that he felt he had no choice but to change the name from eGRID to EsGRID. He was asked by a Powerbasic user to rename it because of a name clash. So, at that time it was merely a name change, meaning that if you have a license for eGRID, then it holds good for EsGRID, the two being the same item 'under the hood'. This happens a lot in the real world. My favourite chocolate bar in the UK was Mars Inc's 'Marathon'. They changed the name to 'Snickers', but it is still the same thing inside the wrapper.......

Of course EsGRID was constantly improved, along with PB itself. That is a good thing (Mars have improves Snickers too). In fairness then, eGRID and EsGRID are one and the same product, just as Marathon and Snickers are.

sRod

All users who purchased the original eGrid control are still entitled to the latest version of EsGRID, including yourself

So, confusion brought about some unnecessary animosity between two important members of this forum. Please guys, a virtual handshake is the order of the day - life is too short to hold grievances.