Question

My grid:

    @( Html.Telerik().Grid<eGate.BackOffice.Core.Model.UI.EgateMenuRevisionViewData>()
        .Name("Grid")
    .Columns(columns =>
    {
        columns.Bound(c => c.ParentId)
            .Aggregate(a => a.Count()).ClientGroupHeaderTemplate(Html.ActionLink("Create a Revision for This Menu", "Edit", "Thing", new { menuid = "<#= Key #>" }, null).ToString());
        columns.Bound(c => c.ParentName);
        columns.Bound(c => c.ThingName);

    })

    .Groupable(grouping => grouping.Groups(groups => { 
        groups.Add(c => c.EgateMenu.EgateMenuId);
    }).Visible(false))

This works. But it gives me:

Create a revision for this menu
1          Parent 1     Thing 1.1
1          Parent 1     Thing 1.2
1          Parent 1     Thing 1.3
Create a revision for this menu
2          Parent 2     Thing 2.1
2          Parent 2     Thing 2.2
2          Parent 2     Thing 2.3

And while that works, I’d much rather something more intuitive like:

Create a thing for parent 1
Thing 1.1
Thing 1.2
Thing 1.3
Create a thing for parent 2
Thing 2.1
Thing 2.2
Thing 2.3

Problem 1:
Create a thing for… needs to pass the ParentId to the actionlink but it needs to display the ParentName for the client yet only one exists in the aggregate at a time.

Problem 2:
I want to group by the Id without displaying the Id column in the results. But setting the column to visible(false) supresses the clientgroupheadertemplate.

Answer 1

Adding Visible(false) to the column binding suppresses the whole column itself from even being rendered in the client html – hence the suppression of the ClientGroupHeaderTemplate.

I would either try adding ParentId as a data key – e.g.

.DataKeys(keys =>
{
     keys.Add(k => k.ParentId);
}

I think this would only help if you were using the built in grid (AJAX or Server) DataBinding though (for Insert at least). With an ActionLink however… I don’t have much experience with using mvc html helpers in client templates – but if you said the orignal example worked with it, shouldn’t something like this work as well?

columns.Bound(c => c.ParentId).ClientTemplate("")
        .Aggregate(a => a.Count()).ClientGroupHeaderTemplate(Html.ActionLink("Create a thing for \"<#= ParentName #>\"", "Edit", "Thing", new { menuid = "<#= Key #>" }, null).ToString());

I added a blank ClientTemplate, which I assume would work so that the ID is not displayed.