Title Index
- 3 minutes to read
The ASPxTitleIndex is a unique web control that is extremely useful when you need to organize a catalog, i.e. provide easy access to elements in a lengthy list. This control arranges links into an alphabetically sorted and grouped list by default. If needed, you can group data by any bound field’s values. End-users can easily narrow down their search to a particular group. For this purpose, they can click a shortcut link to either navigate to the corresponding group or to filter-out all other groups. They can also easily locate an element by just typing a part of its caption into the filter box.
These navigation methods are all done on the client-side or using AJAX callbacks. So, with the ASPxTitleIndex, you can provide the best user experience to your web site.
The ASPxTitleIndex control gives you total control over each and every element’s appearance. In addition, several built-in themes are available, so you can easily realize numerous appearance and layout customization capabilities.
Following is the list of major ASPxTitleIndex features.
Elements and Layout
- The control can include the following elements: index panel, filter box and data (links divided into groups).
- Index panel can be displayed above data, below it or on both sides.
- Filter box can be displayed above or below the top index panel. You can also align it to the left or right control’s edge.
- Each data group can display “Back to top” link. These links have fully customizable content and appearance.
- Caption and description text for the filter box are fully customizable.
- You can make a control more compact and readable by enabling multi-column data display mode. In this mode, all data is simply split into several columns by default. Another option is to turn on the categorized view. In this view, groups are arranged one under another. Data links are broken into several columns within groups.
- In multi-column display modes, you can specify styles for each column individually.
Data Binding and Management
- Display text and URLs for data are specified separately (can be obtained from different data fields).
- Data items can display hints. Hint text is obtained from the specified data field.
- Data can either be grouped alphabetically according to display text, or using values from the specified grouping field.
- Unbound mode is available - you can manually customize the item collection and specify display text, description, URL and grouping value for each individual item. Links in the index panel can either navigate to the corresponding data group, or filter data by the corresponding value.
- Filter box performs its tasks completely on the client side.
- Filter box doesn’t force you to confirm the filter string with a separate button - you only need to type in the required filter criteria. In order to avoid data re-filtering after typing each character, you can enable postponed data filtering. This means you can specify a time interval that passes after you type in a character and before data filtering is actually performed.
AJAX Support
- Data filtering via the index panel can be done using callbacks.
- If callbacks are used, you can fully customize the loading panel’s content.