Using The Silverlight DataGrid

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

Handan Daily — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 09:14:55 GMT

Great!

Silverlight DataGrid

Silmal asp.net datagrid!

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

Valentin Stoychev — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 13:45:40 GMT

Hi Scott - thanks for this blog post. When do you gyus plan to virtualize the Grid? Now it is practicaly unusable with large data. What are your plans in this area?

Thanks!

Keep up the great work :)

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

scmorris — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 19:12:39 GMT

Hi Valentin - Currently we do have UI virtualization but not data virtualization. We have been testing the DataGrid with millions of rows and have been seeing favorable results. Also we plan to continue to make performance enhancements throughout development. I would love to hear any specific scenarios where you are seeing performance issues. Please email me through the Email link above so that we can dig into the specifics. Thanks for the feedback!

Silverlight 2 DataGrid walk-through posted

Brad Abrams — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 20:57:44 GMT

Scott Morrison ( the PM for the Silverlight DataGrid) recently posted a very good walk through of using

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

luoksesi — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 21:20:16 GMT

How can i fill my datagrid with a query of sql?

i can't use directly ..i don't know why =(

Please, show me an example =D

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

mani — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 21:33:48 GMT

Great article Scott. Thanks for the blog.

I am working on DataGrid for last few days and I found it very easy to use initially.

But as I tried to use it in real life application scenarios, I got stuck.

I don't have solutions for

1. How to get controls like CheckBox and List box (if you add it to grid). for example I want to disable the check box based on data from other columns on same row

2. How to bind events to controls under the grid

3. Which event will be raised once data grid is populated?

I hope to find these answers in future articles. (or in response to my comments :)

Keep up the great work.

Silverlight Cream for March 21, 2008 - 2 -- #231

Community Blogs — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 02:07:37 GMT

Shawn Wildermuth creates Linkable SL Apps, Scott Morrison on Getting Started with SL2 and a walk-thru

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

BenHayat — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 02:57:19 GMT

Hi Scott;

You mentioned you have tested the grid with a million records. I've been waiting for SL 2.0 for over a year and now that is out, I don't have any database capabilities to develop business applications that works with data files from SL.

My first question is, how are you getting a million of records into SL and secondly, when are we going to have database programming incapabilities to develop t-tier apps with SL?

Thank you and if you can't answer my second question, could you please point to the right person?

Silverlight 2.0 DataGrid Walk-thru

Techniques — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 03:38:56 GMT

Over at Scott Morrison's blog he has a great entry on how to setup and use the datagrid control in Silverlight

SQL and the DataGrid..

Don Burnett — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 03:51:52 GMT

I highly recommend if you are interested in adding a SQL data source, yes you can do this by creating a webservice and using the LINQ2SQL functions. Remember SL 2.0 is client side so you are going to have to do something still serving it that sql data.. In fact with LINQ you can use any kind data you want..

Check out this video blog tutorial from the Swiss MSDN TEAM..

http://blogs.msdn.com/swiss_dpe_team/archive/2008/03/17/silverlight-2-beta1-wcf-linq-to-sql-a-powerfull-combination.aspx

After watching this you should find it very easy to be mapping SQL data to the datagrid...

-Don

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

BenHayat — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 04:16:39 GMT

Hi Don;

Thank you for the link. Before I get started to develop a complex middle tier data server (using WCF) for my SL client (which can become fairly complex, I like to know what are the plans from MSFT to provide us with some tools for the middle tier. I like to know if Astoria is the solution for SL or id SL team have a more customized solution for SL? Again, I don't want to re-invent the wheel, if the team is already working on it.

I'm going to watch the video now, thank you again!

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

marlongrech — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 15:24:53 GMT

Hi,

I wrote a very small article on how one can make the DataGrid show up in Blend ...

http://marlongrech.wordpress.com/2008/03/22/how-can-i-get-the-datagrid-control-for-silverlight-2-beta-1-to-show-up-in-blend/

Regards

Using The Silverlight DataGrid

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re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

diekus — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 20:25:16 GMT

Hi Scott,

Interesting indeed. I have a question regarding rendering. The thing is that I' loading an XML file containing a list of countries and I've added to the cs class of country a fielda named include (bool) cause I want to be able to select a country, but when I scroll down upper items that where selected appear unchecked. I wouldn't say it's because of binding to the itemsource if we where talking about an aspx application because it would retain it's state until there's a postback, but I'm not sure while it happens on a RIA. Does it have to do with rendering when scrolling? if so, why do items that do not go off screen do maintain their state?

Great blog btw, i'm adding it to my blogroll as soon as i finish building my site

Thanks in advanced for your attention,

-diego

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

scmorris — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:57:02 GMT

Hi Diego,

Based on what you are saying I'm guessing that what you have the DataGrid bound to is something like an IEnumerable which does not persist changes made to it. If this is the case, then when you scroll a row out of view and then back in the row's data is being refreshed from the data source due to a performance increasing process called UI virtualization. Since the IEnumerable doesn't accept the changes, you get the original value. To fix this behavior, instead bind your DataGrid to a List or ObservableCollection. If you are using XLinq to query your XML then you can use the shortcut method .ToList<T> on the collection that was returned from the Linq expression. Hope this helps.

-Scott

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

Ethan Nagel — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 02:15:52 GMT

Hi, Scott, thanks for the post. I'm attempting to implement sorting using the DataGrid, do you have an example as a starting point? Thus far I've found it challenging and haven't found an example (yet) that implements this basic feature.

Using The Silverlight DataGrid

Bilal Haidar [MVP, MCT] — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:19:46 GMT

A very nice walkthrough on using the new Silverlight DataGrid can be reached here: Using The Silverlight

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

Malky — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:30:42 GMT

Hi Scott,

Since I attempt binding with adding row dynamicly using List<T> I found that we have to set ItemSource property of datagrid to null value before we set again with correspondence List<T>, do you have any solution other than this...?

Thanks for your attention

-Malky

Silverlight DataGrid - Freezepane

Kellen — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 18:43:18 GMT

I'm currently unable to test this myself, but does the silverlight datagrid support freezepanes? And if not are there any future plans to add this support?

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

Thomas — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 18:57:55 GMT

I don't see any mention of paging in this post or in the docs. Is paging not supported by the SL2 DataGrid?

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

scmorris — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 19:07:16 GMT

Ethan,

I'll be posting a topic on it however there are a dozen or so topics in the queue before it so it could be a while. To get you started, be sure to bind to an ObservableCollection<T> or some other collection that implements INotifyCollectionChanged. Then you can change the contents of the collection (such as sorting it) and have these changes reflected in your DataGrid.

Malky,

The answer to your question is actually the same as Ethan's. To avoid the behavior that you are seeing you need to bind to something that gives collection changed notifications so that the DataGrid knows to update itself. Go ahead and use an ObservableCollection and you should see the behavior that you want.

-Scott

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

Carlos de Luna Saenz — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 21:40:05 GMT

Is there a way to set "dinamically" just the shown values... let's say i want the list work under a List<myIds> but when those ids will be presented then i will "catch" the other data that i will present form any source i want...

Defining Columns for a Silverlight DataGrid

Scott Morrison — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 04:28:27 GMT

If you read my last post , you might have noticed how easy it is to get a Silverlight DataGrid up and

March 28th Links: ASP.NET, ASP.NET AJAX, ASP.NET MVC, Visual Studio, Silverlight, .NET

Blogs — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 11:43:44 GMT

Here is the latest in my link-listing series .  Also check out my ASP.NET Tips, Tricks and Tutorials

More Silverlight 2.0 DataGrid posts

Hot Topics — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 18:48:16 GMT

Scott Guthrie lists a number of posts and videos about the Silverlight 2.0 DataGrid in March 28th Links

Silverlight Tips, Tricks, Tutorials and Links Page

ScottGu's Blog — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 12:03:16 GMT

I'll be using this page to link to Silverlight 2 articles and posts (both ones I write as well ones by

Silverlight 2 DataGrid 示范教程发布了。

Zqin — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 09:01:08 GMT

Silverlight 2 DataGrid 示范教程发布了

Complex Data DataGrid

jasonxz — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 08:05:35 GMT

Scott,

I appreciate the blogs and the great work y'all are doing on the framework.

But, I'm really lost on one thing:

I want to make a DataGrid with 7 columns, the value of which each come from a separate table. All tables are related. So, I'm struggling with figuring out how I am supposed to get that data into a List or Collection of non-anonymous, non-DataRow objects from the server to the client. I'm trying to do the whole SL/WCF/EF thing here, I can't seem to figure out this piece.

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

Richie Scott — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 11:10:33 GMT

Firstly, what controls can I place in a DataGrids column? I would like to add a date picker, a button, a list (for simple lookups).

Secondly, does (or when will) the DataGrid support Drag and Drop.

Thanks

Richie

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

scmorris — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 22:51:14 GMT

Hi Richie,

Using a DataGridTemplateColumn you can essentially put any FrameworkElement in a column. Go ahead and read my next post http://blogs.msdn.com/scmorris/archive/2008/03/27/defining-columns-for-a-silverlight-datagrid.aspx for more info.

As far as drag and drop, it is currently not a planned feature.

Thanks,

Scott

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

lakshmi — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 08:58:56 GMT

can any one help me add a check box column to a datagrid???

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

scmorris — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 01:11:51 GMT

For information how how to use specific column types such as the CheckBox column, please read: http://blogs.msdn.com/scmorris/archive/2008/03/27/defining-columns-for-a-silverlight-datagrid.aspx for more info.

Let me know if you have any questions that were not covered there.

Thanks,

Scott

Tomando contacto con el control DataGrid de Silverlight

El aprendiz de brujo — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 18:37:44 GMT

Una nueva cuadrícula de datos entra en liza Después de instalar el conjunto de herramientas necesarias

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

Silverlight 2.0 .... Beta.. when? — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 18:52:42 GMT

Nice intro... are you going to write a part 2 talking about the details view?

Thanks

Braulio

Defining Silverlight DataGrid Columns at Runtime

Scott Morrison — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 01:25:53 GMT

Now that you know the basics of the Silverlight DataGrid and how to specify the Columns in XAML , you

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

scmorris — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 01:34:05 GMT

Hi Braulio,

Row Details is on the list of upcoming posts and should show up soon. Thanks for reading.

-Scott

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

Gulsen — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 01:20:59 GMT

Can a column have an icon/image? What type would it be?

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

arigney — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 08:44:52 GMT

Any updates yet on the paging issue?

thanks guys

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

scmorris — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 19:42:46 GMT

Gulsen,

You can use a TemplateColumn for that. See http://blogs.msdn.com/scmorris/archive/2008/03/27/defining-columns-for-a-silverlight-datagrid.aspx for how to use them.

Hope this helps.

-Scott

Silverlight 2.0b1 DataGrid Basics

markti — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 20:35:32 GMT

Scott Morrison has a great post on basic DataGrid usage in Silverlight. Check it out!

A Few New Noteworthy SL Samples

Scott McCraw's Blog — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 07:36:59 GMT

I've been OOF on vacation (Hawaii, where it's warm!). But I'm back now and here's a few new sample applications

silverlight 动态生成silverlight

星际 — Wed, 21 May 2008 04:19:06 GMT

NowthatyouknowthebasicsoftheSilverlightDataGridandhowtospecifytheColumnsinXAML,you...

Silverlight DataGrid 列操作

星际 — Wed, 21 May 2008 04:29:18 GMT

Ifyoureadmylastpost,youmighthavenoticedhoweasyitistogetaSilverlightDataGridupand...

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

Alexandre — Thu, 22 May 2008 09:28:23 GMT

Can I use it with ASP.NET MVC Framework?

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

Yevgeny Safovich — Wed, 28 May 2008 13:52:27 GMT

Hello Scott,

Thank you very much for this post! It provides a good introduction to the DataGrid.

Playing with the DataGrid we encountered a challenge, that we do not succeed to overcome:

Is there a way to have different RowHeight per row?

And is it possible to define a functionality that will act like: "RowHeight=Auto"?

Thanks a lot!

Yevgeny

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

scmorris — Sat, 31 May 2008 05:15:47 GMT

Hi Yevgeny,

The autosizing feature for rows is coming soon, so stay tuned.

-Scott

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

chris — Sat, 31 May 2008 07:38:46 GMT

What about data from and to SQL???

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

scmorris — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 07:03:25 GMT

Hi Chris,

There are a few links to the Swiss MSDN Blog who have some great walkthroughs on how to do that here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/scmorris/archive/2008/06/02/new-posts-coming-soon.aspx

Hope this helps.

-Scott

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

Pari — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 12:06:51 GMT

its gud but explain it more its beneficial for

beginner.

thnx

Silverlight DataGrid (2)

蓝色飞翔 — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 10:46:45 GMT

DefiningColumnsforaSilverlightDataGrid

今天找到關於Silverlight DataGrid 的一些技巧，記錄下來，以備後用.

蓝色飞翔 — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 10:48:13 GMT

今天找到關於SilverlightDataGrid的一些技巧，記錄下來，以備後用.

Silverlight DataGrid(1)

蓝色飞翔 — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 10:48:22 GMT

DefiningSilverlightDataGridColumnsatRuntime

NowthatyouknowthebasicsoftheSilverlightD...

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

Valerie — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 20:22:11 GMT

Thank you for the helpful information!

I am having a very strange issue with a SL 2 B1 datagrid concerning the row details and nested datagrid/listbox.

The main datagrid gets populated based on a selection made from a drop-down control. Each row of the datagrid displays its row details when moused over. Depending on the object that is moused over, the row details may be a nested datagrid (I have also tried making it a listbox but get the same problem). Everything works perfectly the first time around.

However, if I change the drop-down selection and mouse over an object, the datagrid doesn't appear... instead I see a solid black line in the upper left area, that is the result of many strings being piled on top of each other. If it's a list box, then nothing appears at all.

I'm manually creating and adding the datagrid/listbox in the preparing row details method in the code behind. I cannot for the life of me figure out why it works properly for the first item and goes bonkers after that.

Also, the other objects that do not have dg/lb in their details are showing their details just fine every time.

I realize there are many factors that could be causing this issue, but I have tried everything I can think of.

If you have any ideas please email me at valerie.cole@wirestone.com

Thanks!

March 28th Links: ASP.NET, ASP.NET AJAX, ASP.NET MVC, Visual Studio, Silverlight, .NET

Readed By Wrocław NUG members — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 18:30:21 GMT

Here is the latest in my link-listing series .  Also check out my ASP.NET Tips, Tricks and Tutorials

Silverlight 2 的 DataGrid 基本使用方法

木野狐(Neil Chen) — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 19:54:24 GMT

Silverlight2.0beta中据说对DataGrid控件有了不少增强，于是在网上搜了下，找到该项目的PM写的一个介绍帖子：http://blogs.msdn.com/scmor...

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

Kalyan — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 03:58:15 GMT

How one can make the DataGrid show up in Blend June 2008 Preview ?

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

pari — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:54:53 GMT

can i change single row style at runtime when i select any row then style of that row should be chaged

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

Pavlo — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 03:40:13 GMT

Nice post,

Do you know if a grouping feature is planned for the DataGrid?

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

Syed Murtaza Hussain Rizvi — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 08:36:26 GMT

Hey,

Nice work, I have a question here, Last night i was playing with the datagrid and i could find 2 most important feature, which should be there anyway,

1. There is no rowdatabound event, the closest thing i found was RowLoading event, which fires only once, I was able to change the data using the PropertyChanged event, but I was not able to change the row style.

2. I was unable to access the Cells property of the DataGridRow class, later i found it but marked as internal, why is that?

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

borith — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 04:01:24 GMT

can you access SL Datagrid rowtype like asp.net datagrid? and could you list all SL Datagrid event?

thanks

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

MerrillMarie — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 03:45:24 GMT

can you update a specific position in a data grid .. ie column 6 row 5 with code behind routine as oposed to doing it manually? My hope is to update the grid without updating the source?

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

GregT — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 07:20:19 GMT

I find that I can not get the DataGrid to work in the RC0 release. I drag it from the toolbox to the XAML and it is placed in the XAML, but then an error occurs: "The type 'DataGrid' was not found...".

The assembly System.Windows.Controls.Data v2.0.5.0 is referenced.

My installation:

VS 2008 SP1, .Net 3.5 SP1, Silverlight 2 RC0

Any ideas?

Greg

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

GregT — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 07:29:06 GMT

I solved the problem. There is a bug in dragging items from the toolbox to the XAML. I already had a TabControl in the XAML which created the appropriate reference at the top. Apparently when you do this again with a control that references a different assembly it fails. nothing is added to the top (i.e. xmlns:data="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Controls;assembly=System.Windows.Controls.Data" should be added). If I temporarily delete the reference for the TabControl add the DataGrid - everything works correctly and then I add the reference for the TabControl back in.

greg

Silverlight 2 DataGrid is Released

Scott Morrison — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 09:44:00 GMT

As you might have heard , we just released Silverlight 2 , and with it the first version of the Silverlight

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

DjoDjo — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 12:53:40 GMT

Hi guy,

Nice post about this ! Hawever, I have a little question about the grid: How can I be notified that the grid has been sorted (after clicking a header) ? I haven't found any event for that?

thanks again !

DjoDjo

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

hegi kang — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 08:21:54 GMT

may be datagrid's scroll system is something wrong

in the loading_row event, i had creat new binding object and bind DataGrid's RowVisibility property so some row to be not displayed(visibility.collapsed)

but when scrolling scrollbar do not work visibility binding, by result all row display

Scrollbar may be handling DataGrid Row's RowVisibility property internally..

my english skil so poor , do understand.

Using The Silverlight DataGrid

DotNetShoutout — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 01:29:49 GMT

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re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

Andrew — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 10:10:18 GMT

Hey Scott, great post and well put together. I am just learning Silverlight, and this was very helpful. Thanks for taking the time and providing such a clear example.

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

Miguel Madero — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 02:46:45 GMT

Scott,

How can I disable virtualization?

In WPF we can access the VirtualizingStackPanel, but in this case it seems to be something internal to the datagrid and I can't find how to disable it.

Gratuitous platform support [ComputeFileHashes works on the command-line, on WPF, on Silverlight, and via ClickOnce!]

Delay's Blog — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 13:19:53 GMT

Last week, I released the ComputeFileHashes tool for calculating file checksums . (To read more about

[转]Using The Silverlight DataGrid

菩提树下的杨过 — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 16:55:53 GMT

今天无意发现一个老外的博客，上面有一篇讲解如何在silverlight中使用DataGrid的文章，很是不错，把地址记在这里，以方便日后查看

About silverlight datagrid how to add a hyperlink column to pass different parameter to it’s asp.net page.

JIM — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 09:14:15 GMT

Hi Scott,

Thanks for your article about silverlight datagrid .

I’m learning silverlight datagrid , having some problems.

How to add a hyperlink column in a silverlight datagrid and the hyperlink column can pass different parameter to it’s asp.net page.

Thanks .

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

Manokaran — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 12:39:41 GMT

hi scotttt

its nice to see the example code and ur explaination... its helps me a lot... keep it up

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

dotnetguts — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 23:31:24 GMT

Do you have any article for SL Datagrid Sorting and Paging? - Thanks

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

Zdenek — Tue, 12 May 2009 10:20:05 GMT

This is greate for beginners :o)

Thank you!

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

Alan Jackson — Tue, 12 May 2009 21:34:21 GMT

Hey Scott, just saw your session on Data Driven RIA's. Good talk. Nice stuff. I need to ask you though if you could elaborate on the groupby functionality in the out of band release of the datagrid. To me, that seems more like a reporting type of tool and not as useful as a master - detail - detail relationship that I could have built in traditional datasets. For example, if you have a collection of Authors who have each have a collection of books and also a collection of videos. In ASP.Net I would just build a relationship object between those three tables. It would be nice to be able to decompose that master record into the many collections which it may contain.

I would also appreciate any feedback you could provide on performing this functionality on a UDF which throws up a table. In my real world, I might need to pull together 7 different tables for my forms which might involve unions, and the best way to do that is through a UDF. Forget about ASP Entity Framework at the moment as feel it is only about half backed.

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

Michael — Thu, 21 May 2009 19:23:54 GMT

For a datagrid, how can I bind data without any code behind

I mean my data will be defined in the xaml file.

I don't want code anything in the c# or VB class.

I know, in a c# code behind class, it is easy to do that. But, what I am trying to do is to dynamic generate xaml file in a string on server side, and send the string to the client side by using WCF service, then, load the xaml file string using XmlReader.Load(fileString), finally the xaml file will be displayed in the client side browser.

There're so many reasons that I can't send data to client side and using c# class to load data to the class properties and sign it to the Datagrid.ItemSource.

So, I have to build everything in the xaml file string. Can I do it?

Thanks.

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

venjo — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 03:35:22 GMT

Hi Scott,

Is it possible to display a new column instead of new row when you display your data in datagrid? I want my data to display from left to right dynamically in a single row.

re: Using The Silverlight DataGrid

Mark Brooker — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 23:37:50 GMT

Hello,

The grid is awesome, but there are definately times when you want to dynamically build the grid.

Also ...DataSet/DataTable? The serialization can happen, you just need to find a way to put the string indexers on the DataRow after serialization. Just replace the underlying ListDictionary<oibject> with a Dictionary<string, object>.

Actually, don't sweat the serialization, just put the Data Objects in the Silverlight side and support them in the grid.