Custom Data Binding

DevExpress ASP.NET MVC Card View supports custom data binding that allows you to perform all data operations, such as paging, sorting, filtering and summary calculation, completely by yourself.

In this mode, you handle data operations in corresponding Action methods; the correspondence is defined by populating the extension's CustomBindingRouteValuesCollection.

InIn each specified Action, the processed operation related state information, such as a column's state (i.e., which column is sorted and in which direction) or a pager's state (which page is selected), is passed automatically. The CardView's current state (view model) can be obtained through the static CardViewExtension.GetViewModel method and can be updated with the processed operation state. Then, the required data should be provided for the CardView view model via a call to its ProcessCustomBinding method.

The ProcessCustomBinding method has several overloads. You can select a particular one depending on which data operations you need to handle.

Generally, this method provides the following parameters representing typed method delegates:

getDataCardCountMethod of the CardViewCustomBindingGetDataCardCountHandler type
Provide implementation for this method to return the total number of data cards.

getDataMethod of the CardViewCustomBindingGetDataHandler type
Provide implementation for this method to return the required data cards to the CardView.

getSummaryValuesMethod of the CardViewCustomBindingGetSummaryValuesHandler type
Provide implementation for this method to calculate and return values of summaries required within the CardView.

getUniqueHeaderFilterValuesMethod of the CardViewCustomBindingGetUniqueHeaderFilterValuesHandler type
Provide implementation for this method to return unique values to be displayed in the header filter popup list invoked for a column.

The resulting CardView state (view model) is returned as a model to a view that contains the CardView. To bind the CardView to this view model, use the BindToCustomData method.

This demo shows an advanced implementation of custom data binding - all data operations are processed (in particular: sorting, paging, summary calculations and filtering including column header filter invocation).

Note that when implementing CardView custom data binding, the DevExpressEditorsBinder must be used instead of the default model binder to correctly transfer values from DevExpress editors back to the corresponding data model fields. In this demo, the DevExpressEditorsBinder is assigned to the ModelBinders.Binders.DefaultBinder property within the Global.asax file, thus overriding the default model binder.