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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-12T20:53:52+00:00

Currently, I’m in the process of making a custom solution for invoicing. I have

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Currently, I’m in the process of making a custom solution for invoicing. I have created multiple ways for customers to create their template (HTML, Word, LaTex) and get invoices according to their template. However, these invoices are party manually generated.

So, the process is:

  • Request to create a new invoice
  • An preliminary invoice is created
  • The user gets a chance to make changes (i.e. add, remove, change rows)
  • Create a pdf

Just to be clear, the preliminary invoice does not need to be formatted as the template is, but you should be able to add/remove/change rows and for every cell, indicate whether the value should be visible in the final result.

My problem is that i cannot find a suitable way to display the preliminary invoices. I tried a datagrid (default, telerik, devexpress), but it’s too messy. Besides a datagrid, i have no idea what i can use.

What controls can i use best to have a nice and usable UI.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    A typical UI paradigm for this kind of thing is to view it as two separate problems: giving the user a way of viewing the elements that he can modify, and giving him the ability to modify any specific element. You use a list control (ListBox, ListView, maybe TreeView if the elements are organized hierarchically or need to be grouped into categories) to present the elements, and then when the user selects an element the program presents a tabular presentation of field names and editable value controls.

    Basically, you’re dividing the program’s functionality into two categories: stuff that the user wants to do to rows (add, remove, re-order, select) and stuff that the user wants to do to the selected row’s elements.

    You can mush these two sets of functionality into one if you use a DataGridView, but as you’ve seen that gets pretty ugly if there’s any complexity to the elements you’re editing.

    Two possible approaches to this: the property-sheet paradigm (select object, right-click, select “Properties”, edit values in a modal dialog), or a paradigm where the window’s split into two panels, with one being the rows and the other being the details of the currently selected row. There are lots of others.

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