Sean McMullan

In developing Web applications, the most common method for displaying multiple rows of data on a Web page has been to use the HTML

element. Presenting the user with a static table of data might be fine in some instances, but if you're trying to develop a more user-friendly application, there are a few features missing that you'd find in a typical rich-client data grid. If a user wants to change the order of the rows, another call to the server must be made to get the data from a database in a different order, and the HTML table with data must be sent to the browser again, which isn't very efficient. Another problem is that if there are many rows of data, the user must scroll the window, thus losing sight of the column headings. If you're developing a spreadsheet ... (more)