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MCP Magazine June 4, 2003

Even though there's a lot of .NET news these days (as you've surely noticed in Developer Central!) there is plenty of development going on with previous versions of software as well. In particular, VB 6.0 remains a perfectly viable platform for many applications. If you're working in VB 6.0, and in need of a grid control, itGrid is a lesser-known alternative that's pretty impressive. I tried out the most recent release, and I was impressed with both the speed of the control and its flexibility. Loading, sorting, searching all happen very quickly on my test box; this grid is clearly a performer. For flexibility, here are a few cute examples from their sample application: - "Minesweeper" implemented as a clickable grid - XML loading into a hierarchical display - Owner-draw bar graphs - Fine control over everything from grid styles to tab behavior - Grids that look (and behave) like property sheets The control doesn't have any dependencies beyond the VB 6.0 infrastructure, so it won't add much to your distribution footprint. The price gets you a redistribution license for applications you build (though not, of course, for the design-time license). In addition to VB6, it also works in recent versions of Access, and is safe for scripting and initialization and signed for use in IE (among other things, this allows them to put live samples in their HTML help file -- a nice touch). You can download a 14-day sample from the company's Web site, or see a bunch of screenshots that may provoke you to download. You can use this version in .NET via COM Interop, but they say there's a native .NET version planned for the future as well. Mike Gunderloy, Contributing Editor, MCP Magazine First printed in MCP Magazine's Developer Central Newsletter #28. CLICK HERE to visit MCP Magazine.

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