Access to Underlying Controls
- 3 minutes to read
The WinForms Designer uses DevExpress WinForms controls to visualize data within dashboard items. If necessary, you can access these controls and customize their settings to add specific capabilities.
The DashboardDesigner control exposes the following events that allow you to access these controls and customize their settings.
- Use the DashboardDesigner.DashboardItemControlCreated event to subscribe to control events.
- Use the DashboardDesigner.DashboardItemControlUpdated event to access underlying controls and customize their settings.
- Use the DashboardDesigner.DashboardItemBeforeControlDisposed event to unsubscribe from control events.
The DashboardItemControlEventArgs.DashboardItemName event parameter returns the component name of the dashboard item to be customized. Use the following properties to access the corresponding underlying controls.
Dashboard Item | Control | Property |
---|---|---|
Limitations
Note that changing specific control settings may lead to various issues. We do not recommend changing the following settings:
- data binding settings;
- basic data presentation settings (for instance, a set of grid columns, chart series or pivot grid fields).
Note
Note that printed or exported documents containing a dashboard/dashboard item do not reflect appearance settings applied using the events for accessing of underlying controls.
Example
This example demonstrates how to customize the controls used to visualize data in the dashboard items at runtime.
The following options are changed:
- Grid: The DashboardDesigner.DashboardItemControlUpdated event is handled to change font.
- Chart: The DashboardDesigner.DashboardItemControlUpdated event is handled to change the background color of the chart pane.
- Pivot: Cell values related to “Mountain” products are hidden. The PivotGridControl.CustomCellValue, DashboardDesigner.DashboardItemControlCreated and DashboardDesigner.DashboardItemBeforeControlDisposed events are handled.
Note
The complete sample project How to Access the Underlying Controls of the Dashboard Items is available in the DevExpress Examples repository.
using DevExpress.XtraCharts;
using DevExpress.XtraGrid.Views.Grid;
using DevExpress.XtraPivotGrid;
using System.Drawing;
namespace DashboardDesigner_ControlAccess
{
public partial class DesignerForm1: DevExpress.XtraBars.Ribbon.RibbonForm
{
public DesignerForm1() {
InitializeComponent();
dashboardDesigner.CreateRibbon();
dashboardDesigner.LoadDashboard(@"..\..\Dashboards\dashboard1.xml");
}
private void dashboardDesigner_DashboardItemControlCreated(object sender, DevExpress.DashboardWin.DashboardItemControlEventArgs e) {
if(e.DashboardItemName == "pivotDashboardItem1") {
PivotGridControl pivotGridControl = e.PivotGridControl;
pivotGridControl.CustomCellValue += PivotGridControl_CustomCellValue; ;
}
}
private void PivotGridControl_CustomCellValue(object sender, PivotCellValueEventArgs e) {
if (e.RowField == null) return;
if (e.GetFieldValue(e.RowField).ToString().Contains("Mountain"))
e.Value = "###";
}
private void dashboardDesigner_DashboardItemControlUpdated(object sender, DevExpress.DashboardWin.DashboardItemControlEventArgs e) {
if(e.DashboardItemName == "gridDashboardItem1") {
GridView gridView = e.GridControl.MainView as GridView;
gridView.Appearance.Row.Font = new Font("Arial", 10);
}
if(e.DashboardItemName == "chartDashboardItem1") {
ChartControl chartControl = e.ChartControl;
((XYDiagram)chartControl.Diagram).Panes[0].BackColor = Color.AliceBlue;
}
}
private void dashboardDesigner_DashboardItemBeforeControlDisposed(object sender, DevExpress.DashboardWin.DashboardItemControlEventArgs e) {
if(e.DashboardItemName == "pivotDashboardItem1") {
PivotGridControl pivotGridControl = e.PivotGridControl;
pivotGridControl.CustomCellValue -= PivotGridControl_CustomCellValue;
}
}
}
}