Visual Basic 2005: A Developer's Notebook

Format the DataGridView

Formatting the .NET 1.x DataGrid ranges from awkward to nearly impossible. However, thanks to its multi-layered model, formatting the DataGridView is far easier. This model builds on a single class, the DataGridViewCellStyle, which encapsulates key formatting properties. You can assign different DataGridViewCellStyle objects to separate rows, columns, or even distinct cells.

Note

By using a few simple style properties, you can configure the appearance of the entire grid, individual columns, or rows with important data.

How do I do that?

The DataGridView already looks better than the DataGrid in its default state. For example, you'll notice that the column headers have a modern, flat look and become highlighted when the user moves the mouse over them. However, there's much more you can do with the help of the DataGridViewCellStyle class.

The DataGridViewCellStyle collects all the formatting properties of the DataGridView. It defines appearance-related settings (e.g., color, font), and data formatting (e.g., currency, date formats). All in all, the DataGridViewCellStyle provides the following key properties:

Alignment

Sets how text is justified inside the cell.

BackColor and ForeColor

Set the color of the cell background and the color of the cell text.

Font

Sets the font used for the cell text.

Format

A format string that configures how numeric or date data values will be formatted as strings. You can use the standard .NET format specifiers and your own custom format ...