React Grid Cell Editing

The Ignite UI for React Cell Editing in React Grid provides a great data manipulation capability of the content of individual cells within the React Grid component and comes with powerful API for React CRUD operations. It is a fundamental feature in apps like spreadsheets, data tables, and data grids, allowing users to add, edit, or update data within specific cells. By default, the Grid in Ignite UI for React is used in cell editing. And due to the default cell editing template, there will be different editors based on the column data type Top of Form.

In addition, you can define your own custom templates for update-data actions and to override the default behavior for committing and discarding any changes.

React Grid Cell Editing and Edit Templates Example

Cell Editing

Editing through UI

You can enter edit mode for specific cell, when an editable cell is focused in one of the following ways:

• on double click;
• on single click - Single click will enter edit mode only if the previously selected cell was in edit mode and currently selected cell is editable. If the previously selected cell was not in edit mode, single click will select the cell without entering edit mode;
• on key press Enter;
• on key press F2;

You can exit edit mode without committing the changes in one of the following ways:

• on key press Escape;
• when you perform sorting, filtering, searching and hiding operations;

You can exit edit mode and commit the changes in one of the following ways:

• on key press Enter;
• on key press F2;
• on key press Tab;
• on single click to another cell - when you click on another cell in the IgrGrid, your changes will be submitted.
• operations like paging, resize, pin or move will exit edit mode and changes will be submitted.

[!Note] The cell remains in edit mode when you scroll vertically or horizontally or click outside the IgrGrid. This is valid for both cell editing and row editing.

Editing through API

You can also modify the cell value through the IgrGrid API but only if primary key is defined:

function updateCell() {
    grid1Ref.current.updateCell(newValue, rowID, 'ReorderLevel');
}

Another way to update cell is directly through update method of Cell:

function updateCell() {
    const cell = grid1Ref.current.getCellByColumn(rowIndex, 'ReorderLevel');
    // You can also get cell by rowID if primary key is defined
    // cell = grid1Ref.current.getCellByKey(rowID, 'ReorderLevel');
    cell.update(70);
}

Cell Editing Templates

You can see and learn more for default cell editing templates in the general editing topic.

If you want to provide a custom template which will be applied to a cell, you can pass such template either to the cell itself, or to its header. First create the column as you usually would:

<IgrColumn
    field="race"
    header="Race"
    dataType="String"
    editable="true"
    name="column1"
    id="column1">
</IgrColumn>

and pass the templates to this column in the index.ts file:

public webGridCellEditCellTemplate = (e: { dataContext: IgrCellTemplateContext; }) => {
    let cellValues: any = [];
    let uniqueValues: any = [];
    const cell = e.dataContext.cell;
    const colIndex = cell.id.columnID;
    const field: string = this.grid1.getColumnByVisibleIndex(colIndex).field;
    const key = field + "_" + cell.id.rowID;
    let index = 0;
    for (const i of this.roleplayDataStats as any) {
      if (uniqueValues.indexOf(i[field]) === -1) {
        cellValues.push(
          <>
            <IgrSelectItem
              selected={e.dataContext.cell.value == i[field]}
              value={i[field]}
              key={key + "_" + index}
            >
              <div key={key + "_" + index}>{i[field]}</div>
            </IgrSelectItem>
          </>
        );
        uniqueValues.push(i[field]);
      }
      index++;
    }
    return (
      <>
        <IgrSelect
          key={key}
          change={(x: any) => {
            setTimeout(() => {
              cell.editValue = x.value;
            });
          }}
        >
          {cellValues}
        </IgrSelect>
      </>
    );
  };

Working sample of the above can be found here for further reference:

Grid Excel Style Editing

Using Excel Style Editing allows the user to navigate trough the cells just as he would using the Excel, and ever so quickly edit them.

Implementing this custom functionality can be done by utilizing the events of the IgrGrid. First we hook up to the grid's keydown events, and from there we can implement two functionalities:

• Constant edit mode

function keydownHandler(event) {
  const key = event.keyCode;
  const grid = grid1Ref.current;
  const activeElem = grid.navigation.activeNode;

  if ((key >= 48 && key <= 57) ||
      (key >= 65 && key <= 90) ||
      (key >= 97 && key <= 122)) {
        // Number or Alphabet upper case or Alphabet lower case
        const columnName = grid.getColumnByVisibleIndex(activeElem.column).field;
        const cell = grid.getCellByColumn(activeElem.row, columnName);
        if (cell && !grid.crudService.cellInEditMode) {
            grid.crudService.enterEditMode(cell);
            cell.editValue = event.key;
        }
    }
}

• Enter/Shift+Enter navigation

if (key == 13) {
    let thisRow = activeElem.row;
    const column = activeElem.column;
    const rowInfo = grid.dataView;

    // to find the next eligible cell, we will use a custom method that will check the next suitable index
    let nextRow = getNextEditableRowIndex(thisRow, rowInfo, event.shiftKey);

    // and then we will navigate to it using the grid's built in method navigateTo
    grid1Ref.current.navigateTo(nextRow, column, (obj) => {
        obj.target.activate();
        grid1Ref.current.clearCellSelection();
    });
}

Key parts of finding the next eligible index would be:

//first we check if the currently selected cell is the first or the last
if (currentRowIndex < 0 || (currentRowIndex === 0 && previous) || (currentRowIndex >= dataView.length - 1 && !previous)) {
return currentRowIndex;
}
// in case using shift + enter combination, we look for the first suitable cell going up the field
if (previous) {
return  dataView.findLastIndex((rec, index) => index < currentRowIndex && this.isEditableDataRecordAtIndex(index, dataView));
}
// or for the next one down the field
return dataView.findIndex((rec, index) => index > currentRowIndex && this.isEditableDataRecordAtIndex(index, dataView));

Please check the full sample for further reference:

React Grid Excel Style Editing Sample

Main benefits of the above approach include:

• Constant edit mode: typing while a cell is selected will immediately enter edit mode with the value typed, replacing the existing one
• Any non-data rows are skipped when navigating with Enter/Shift+Enter. This allows users to quickly cycle through their values.

CRUD operations

[!Note] Please keep in mind that when you perform some CRUD operation all of the applied pipes like filtering, sorting and grouping will be re-applied and your view will be automatically updated.

The IgrGrid provides a straightforward API for basic CRUD operations.

Adding a new record

The IgrGrid component exposes the addRow method which will add the provided data to the data source itself.

// Adding a new record
// Assuming we have a `getNewRecord` method returning the new row data.
const record = getNewRecord();
grid1Ref.current.addRow(record);

Updating data in the Grid

Updating data in the Grid is achieved through updateRow and updateCell methods but only if the PrimaryKey for the grid is defined. You can also directly update a cell and/or a row value through their respective update methods.

// Updating the whole row
grid1Ref.current.updateRow(newData, this.selectedCell.cellID.rowID);

// Just a particular cell through the Grid API
grid1Ref.current.updateCell(newData, this.selectedCell.cellID.rowID, this.selectedCell.column.field);

// Directly using the cell `update` method
selectedCell.update(newData);

// Directly using the row `update` method
const row = grid1Ref.current.getRowByKey(rowID);
row.update(newData);

Deleting data from the Grid

Please keep in mind that deleteRow method will remove the specified row only if a primaryKey is defined.

// Delete row through Grid API
grid1Ref.current.deleteRow(selectedCell.cellID.rowID);
// Delete row through row object
const row = grid1Ref.current.getRowByIndex(rowIndex);
row.del();

Cell Validation on Edit Event

Using the IgrGrid's editing events, we can alter how the user interacts with the IgrGrid.

In this example, we'll validate a cell based on the data entered in it by binding to the CellEdit event. If the new value of the cell does not meet our predefined criteria, we'll prevent it from reaching the data source by cancelling the event.

The first thing we need to do is bind to the grid's event:

<IgrGrid cellEdit={handleCellEdit}>
</IgrGrid>

The CellEdit emits whenever any cell's value is about to be committed. In our CellEdit definition, we need to make sure that we check for our specific column before taking any action:

function handleCellEdit(s: IgrGridBaseDirective, args: IgrGridEditEventArgs): void {
    const column = args.detail.column;

    if (column.field === 'UnitsOnOrder') {
        const rowData = args.detail.rowData;
        if (!rowData) {
            return;
        }
        if (args.detail.newValue > rowData.UnitsInStock) {
            args.detail.cancel = true;
            alert("You cannot order more than the units in stock!");  
        }
    }
}

If the value entered in a cell under the Units On Order column is larger than the available amount (the value under Units in Stock), the editing will be cancelled and the user will be alerted to the cancellation.

The result of the above validation being applied to our IgrGrid can be seen in the below demo:

Styling

In addition to the predefined themes, the grid could be further customized by setting some of the available CSS properties. In case you would like to change some of the colors, you need to set a class for the grid first:

<IgrGrid className="grid"></IgrGrid>

Then set the related CSS properties for that class:

.grid {
    --ig-grid-edit-mode-color: orange;
    --ig-grid-cell-editing-background: lightblue;
}

Styling Example

API References

• IgrGrid

• IgrDatePicker

Additional Resources

• Virtualization and Performance
• Paging
• Filtering
• Sorting
• Summaries
• Column Pinning
• Column Resizing
• Selection
• Searching