RadGrid can now make Asynchronous JavaScript with XMLHttpRequests (AJAX). This dramatically improves the responsiveness of the component, simulates Windows-application like behavior, and minimizes the traffic to the server.
To enable AJAX callback requests you need to set a single property to true. This will make all Button, ImageButton, LinkButton controls, as well as any custom controls within RadGrid to make AJAX callbacks instead of postbacks.

RadGrid now provides complete XHTML compliance. The HTML markup of the component is fully XHTML 1.1 compliant.

Moreover, RadGrid is now "Level A" content compliant as well (in accordance with the W3C Web Accessibility Guidelines 1.0).

RadGrid now allows you to expand hierarchical tables client-side for better user experience. Moreover, you can specify the expand/collapse mode (client- or server-side) for each individual table, i.e. client-side for first level and server-side second level.
Similarly to the hierarchical mode, RadGrid can expand/collapse grouped items entirely client-side, eliminating the time-consuming postbacks for this common operation.

RadGrid supports different edit forms for management of item content. You can switch the type of the edit forms using the GridEditFormType Enumeration - Web User Control, Template, etc.

RadGrid allows you to set the number of vertical columns, across which an autogenerated edit form will span.

RadGrid now enables you to apply conditional formatting to grid elements for enhanced readability and usability of the displayed data.

RadGrid saves the structure of the columns for each [detail] table view in the ViewState.

RadGrid supports the full set of features on most popular browsers like Internet Explorer, Gecko-based browsers (Mozilla Firefox, Netscape), and Opera.

RadGrid allows presentation of related DataSets as hierarchical structures of tables. A unique feature of the component is the ability to have more than one tables in the same level of hierarchy.

RadGrid allows easily implementation of multilevel Outlook-style grouping of data from a single table. Simply drag the column header(s) to the group panel on the top to define the grouping order and hierarchy. You can also programmatically group the data using the group-by expressions.
An unique feature is the ability for single- or multi-column sorting, while the data is grouped by two columns (e.g. group by one/two column(s) and sort by another column).

In addition to the simple one-column sorting RadGrid allows you to sort data by several columns just like in Microsoft Excel.

You can tune RadGrid performance by controlling the trade-off between client-side load and speed. When working with hierarchical data, you can choose one of the three available modes for loading the detail tables:
 - ServerBind - optimum server load, viewstate and render size.
 - ServerOnDemand - minimum viewstate and render-size, maximum server load.
 - Client - minimum server load, maximum viewstate and render-size. Rich client browser functionality.

A unique feature of Telerik RadGrid is the ability to preserve its appearance, group-by state, sorting, current page, edit or selected state, and resizing after postbacks with minimum resource usage. This significantly improves the usability of the component.

RadGrid supports convenient client-side column and row resizing with features like:
- real-time resizing
- resizing of the grid on column resizing
- clipping of the cell content on column resizing

Telerik RadGrid allows users to quickly reorder the columns by simply drag-and-dropping their headers.

RadGrid supports all widely used column types (Edit Command, Bound, CheckBox, Dropdown, PushButton, LinkbButton, HyperLink, ) as well as Templated columns, which give you complete freedom over the data layout and formatting.

RadGrid natively supports table paging, which allows you to view the data into small chunks for faster loading and easier navigation. 

 

RadGrid enhances the simple scrolling by supporting static headers - you can scroll the grid data, while the header row always stays visible.

You can easily select multiple rows using Ctrl + Click or by simply dragging a range over the rows, which you want to select.

RadGrid has full support for the design mode of Visual Studio .NET. This allows you to build, customize, and populate the grid in a convenient WYSIWYG environment.

RadGrid introduces a comprehensive client-side API, which enables you to resize, move, reorder, select, scroll columns on-the-fly and much more.

You can easily export the content of RadGrid to Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word.

RadGrid fully supports two flexible methods for editing the data within the grid
 - in-place - edit controls appear into the edited row
 - in-forms - the grid generates form-like view and thus saving page space

Editable columns in RadGrid (Bound column, Dropdown column, CheckBox column) allow for replacing their default editors with custom ones, which gives the ability for enhanced functionality such as validation, rich-text editing, third-party controls. Once created, you can then easily re-use the custom editors for other grid implementations.

 

The appearance of all RadGrid elements is fully customizable using skins. If you have a hierarchical grid, you can set a single skin for the whole grid, or customize each DetailTable separately.

The declarative syntax of RadGrid is quite similar to that of Microsoft DataGrid, therefore, the migration from DataGrid to RadGrid is very easy and intuitive.

All standard ASP.NET controls in grid cells that normally perform postbacks will now use the RadGrid AJAX mechanism automatically. Furthermore the AJAX support for third-party controls has been significantly improved. As a result, developers can enjoy the performance AJAX technology by merely setting a single property, EnableAsyncRequests, to true.

Hold the Shift key and use the grid scrollbar to virtually change the grid pages. RadGrid will perform an AJAX request and silently change the page to the one set with the virtual scrollbar.

 

The data binding mechanism of RadGrid has been significantly enhanced to effectively utilize the automatic data editing operations of the .NET 2.0 DataSource controls:

• Automatic update/insert/delete from 4 types of columns: GridBoundColumn, GridCheckBoxColumn, GridDropDownColumn and GridTemplateColumn
• Automatic update/insert/delete from edit form template - RadGrid supports automatic updates even from templates that replace the default edit forms.
• API for programmatic invocation of automatic update/insert/delete
• Error handling API for automatic updates
• Update in both Pessimistic/Optimistic concurrency mode of the DataSource controls
• Declarative support for automatic data editing operations

RadGrid can extract the values from a template column even under ASP.NET 1.x using the declarative DataBindingsDescrption collection.

The ExtractValuesFromItem method will collect all field/value pairs that can be used to perform updates. This allows you to develop your application in a way similar to the update mechanism in ASP.NET 2.0, while saving dozens of extra code.

You can set RadGrid to insert new records entirely in a declarative way. Yet when you need greater customization you can still have programmatic control over the behavior of this feature.

RadGrid can now perform filtering operations for all columns that support filtering GridBoundColumn, GridCheckBoxColumn, etc. For each column there will be a dropdown menu with the available filter expressions.
RadGrid can automatically determine the expression set applicable for each column based on the data type of the field. Each column data type is automatically stored by RadGrid during data binding in the DataType property.

RadGrid allows you with just few lines of code set predefined values for specific Item input controls (e.g. dropdown list) prior to Item insertion. This lets you declaratively bind such input controls and later use their values when performing automatic updates.

You can now add custom column editors to the WebForm. Then you can declaratively set a column to use these editors. Using this mechanism gives you a great flexibility and very easy customization of the edit forms.

The Pager item now can use templates. All command buttons in the template can take advantage of the paging command API, the PagerItem.Paging properties using binding expressions. This allows highest level of customization of the Pager item and even using custom logic for defining the appearance.

Now you can define hierarchical grids using the enhanced property builder in Visual Studio.Net.

GridCommandItem can be used to add function buttons in the content area of RadGrid, such as [Add New Record], [Refresh], [Delete Selected], etc.

GridButtonColumn and GridEditCommandColumn now support ImageButtons - intuitive default images are now included for edit, update, insert, cancel, add new record, refresh and other, that can much improve the user experience.

When RadGrid is working in AJAX mode, it can display a template during asynchronous operations. You can use the default template or set your own where you can even use rich media like flash objects for example.

RadGrid is now shipped with a consistent set of skins that allow you to easily build slick interfaces with the look-and-feel of Windows XP, Office, Visual Studio, etc. The skin can be easily switched using a single property.

In order to automate the common scenario of two related grids on a single page RadGrid provides a new property called SelectedValue. It lets you display specific data in one grid depending on the currently selected item in another grid on the page.

RadGrid v3.5 significantly improves the developer's productivity with the new enhanced Smart Tag. It provides an access to the most frequently used grid features in a codeless manner.

The accessibility features of RadGrid are further enhanced by the new support for keyboard navigation.

As of our Q2 2006 release all resources (scripts, skins, etc) are implemented as Embedded Web Resources in ASP.NET 2.0 for a very easy and convenient deployment. The only thing you now need to do is drag RadGrid from your toolbox onto your web page (no external files will be required). The "/RadControls" folder will only be needed if you plan to use a skin other than the default or if you make any modifications to the script files.