Use Spreadsheet Documents in Business Objects

• Nov 11, 2022
• 2 minutes to read

This topic describes how to use the SpreadsheetPropertyEditor and ASPxSpreadsheetPropertyEditor to display byte array properties in WinForms and ASP.NET Web Forms applications. The following images demonstrate these Property Editors assigned to the Document.Data property:

The SpreadsheetPropertyEditor in a WinForms application

The ASPxSpreadsheetPropertyEditor in an ASP.NET Web Forms application

Assign the Spreadsheet Property Editor to a Business Class’ Property

In Code

Decorate a business class’ property with the EditorAliasAttribute and pass the SpreadsheetPropertyEditor value as the attribute’s parameter:

using DevExpress.ExpressApp.Editors;
using DevExpress.Persistent.Base;
using DevExpress.Persistent.BaseImpl.EF;
// ...
[EditorAlias(EditorAliases.SpreadsheetPropertyEditor)] 
public virtual byte[] Data { get; set; }

// Make sure that you use options.UseChangeTrackingProxies() in your DbContext settings.

using DevExpress.ExpressApp.Editors;
using DevExpress.Persistent.Base;
using DevExpress.Persistent.BaseImpl;
// ...
private byte[] data;
[EditorAlias(EditorAliases.SpreadsheetPropertyEditor)] 
public byte[] Data { 
    get { return data; }
    set { SetPropertyValue(nameof(Data), ref data, value); }
}

Imports DevExpress.ExpressApp.Editors
Imports DevExpress.Persistent.Base
Imports DevExpress.Persistent.BaseImpl
' ...
Private fData() As Byte
<EditorAlias(EditorAliases.SpreadsheetPropertyEditor)> _
Public Property Data() As Byte()
    Get
        Return fData
    End Get
    Set(ByVal value As Byte())
        SetPropertyValue(NameOf(Data), fData, value)
    End Set
End Property

In the Model Editor

Navigate to the Views | <DetailView> | Items | <PropertyEditor> node and set the PropertyEditorType property to DevExpress.ExpressApp.Office.Win.SpreadsheetPropertyEditor or DevExpress.ExpressApp.Office.Web.ASPxSpreadsheetPropertyEditor.

Edit the Document in a Separate Window

Use the Show in popup context menu command to open the document in a new modal window.

In ASP.NET Web Forms applications, you can edit the document in full-screen mode.