Question

The default ASP.NET Dynamic Data template by default uses a GridView to display the menu repeating vertically. This doesn’t look particularly well. I’m wondering if there is either (a) a way to get the gridview repeating horizontally or (b) use another control that allows horizontal repeating.

Answer 1

This is a simple process. In our code-behind file we have to wire up our Dynamic Data connection like so:

    Menu1.DataSource = visibleTables
    Menu1.DataBind()

Then we create a DataList like so:

<asp:DataList ID="Menu1" runat="server" 
      CellPadding="3" GridLines="Vertical" 
      HorizontalAlign="Center" CssClass="DDGridView" RepeatDirection="Horizontal"   
      ItemStyle-CssClass="td" HeaderStyle-CssClass="th" >
<ItemTemplate>
    <asp:DynamicHyperLink ID="HyperLink1" runat="server"><%# Eval("DisplayName")%></asp:DynamicHyperLink>
</ItemTemplate>
</asp:DataList>

You can see that I’ve utilized (temporarily) the css classes from the default gridview to provide uniform layout/display elements.