how do I host a control in a DataGridViewCell for displaying as well as editing?

Question

I\'ve seen How to: Host Controls in Windows Forms DataGridView Cells which explains how to host a control for editing a cell in a DataGridView. But how can I host a control for

Answer 1

There are two ways to do this:

1). Cast a DataGridViewCell to a certain cell type that exists. For example, convert a DataGridViewTextBoxCell to DataGridViewComboBoxCell type.

2). Create a control and add it into the controls collection of DataGridView, set its location and size to fit the cell that to be host.

See Zhi-Xin Ye's sample code below which illustrates the tricks:

private void Form_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    DataTable dt = new DataTable();
    dt.Columns.Add("name");
    for (int j = 0; j < 10; j++)
    {
        dt.Rows.Add("");
    }
    this.dataGridView1.DataSource = dt;
    this.dataGridView1.Columns[0].Width = 200;

    /*
    * First method : Convert to an existed cell type such ComboBox cell,etc
    */

    DataGridViewComboBoxCell ComboBoxCell = new DataGridViewComboBoxCell();
    ComboBoxCell.Items.AddRange(new string[] { "aaa","bbb","ccc" });
    this.dataGridView1[0, 0] = ComboBoxCell;
    this.dataGridView1[0, 0].Value = "bbb";

    DataGridViewTextBoxCell TextBoxCell = new DataGridViewTextBoxCell();
    this.dataGridView1[0, 1] = TextBoxCell;
    this.dataGridView1[0, 1].Value = "some text";

    DataGridViewCheckBoxCell CheckBoxCell = new DataGridViewCheckBoxCell();
    CheckBoxCell.Style.Alignment = DataGridViewContentAlignment.MiddleCenter;
    this.dataGridView1[0, 2] = CheckBoxCell;
    this.dataGridView1[0, 2].Value = true;

    /*
    * Second method : Add control to the host in the cell
    */
    DateTimePicker dtp = new DateTimePicker();
    dtp.Value = DateTime.Now.AddDays(-10);
    //add DateTimePicker into the control collection of the DataGridView
    this.dataGridView1.Controls.Add(dtp);
    //set its location and size to fit the cell
    dtp.Location = this.dataGridView1.GetCellDisplayRectangle(0, 3,true).Location;
    dtp.Size = this.dataGridView1.GetCellDisplayRectangle(0, 3,true).Size;
}

MSDN Reference : how to host different controls in the same column in DataGridView control

Using the 1st method looks like this:

Using the 2nd method looks like this:

Additional info: Controls in the same DataGridView column dont render while initializing grid