Question

I have seen many people placing table inside a panel like this one. What are the advantages of doing this?

Is it for vertical scroll-bar that appears on the panel alone?

E.g.:

    <asp:Panel SACID="id1" runat="server" ScrollBars="Vertical" Width="750px" Height="150">

    <asp:GridView  Width="750" Height="150" ID="empiMemberHcidGridView"
                                runat="server" AutoGenerateColumns="False" ShowHeader="false" RowStyle-HorizontalAlign="Center"
                                BorderStyle="None" BorderWidth="0" >
                                <Columns>
                                    <asp:TemplateField ItemStyle-Width="155px" HeaderText="Member Id">
                                        <ItemTemplate>
                                            <asp:Label ID="memberIdLabel" Text='<%# Bind("MemberId") %>' runat="server"></asp:Label>
                                        </ItemTemplate>
                                        <ItemStyle HorizontalAlign="Left" Width="155px" Wrap="False"></ItemStyle>
                                    </asp:TemplateField>
                                    <asp:TemplateField ItemStyle-Width="155px" HeaderText="Type">
                                        <ItemTemplate>
                                            <asp:Label ID="typeLabel" Text='<%# Bind("InterfaceType") %>' runat="server"></asp:Label>
                                        </ItemTemplate>
                                        <ItemStyle HorizontalAlign="Left" Width="155px" Wrap="False"></ItemStyle>
                                    </asp:TemplateField>   
  </asp:GridView>         
</asp:Panel>

Answer 1

IMO, few reasons for putting a grid into ASP.NET panel can be

1. Scrolling support (both horizontal & vertical) – so your table can be wide and/or long and still occupies limited area on page
2. For having some default button (see default button property)
3. For manipulating at java-script side – for example, you want to show it in a modal popup and your js library needs popup element to be div. Or let’s say that you make an AJAX service call to get update table contents and and quickly refresh by replacing div’s innerHtml etc.