How-to Use Data Grids

On this page:

In the Survey Manager, data grids are often used for showing properties of multiple items located in such places as the Points Editor and Project Explorer.

The data grids offer many opportunities for customization such as filtering, sorting and grouping.
Most of these options are found by right clicking on the column headers to open the contextual menu.

Contextual menu

Options
Sort Ascending	Sorts values in the selected column. All other columns change accordingly. Sorting the data can be done in two ways: Click on the header of the column to be sorted. When the column is not sorted it will be displayed normally (without an arrow). Open the contextual menu by right clicking on the header of the column to be sorted and selecting the Sort Ascending option. When the column is sorted ascending it will show an arrow pointing up. Not available for Color and Layer.
Sort Descending	Sorts values in the selected column. All other columns change accordingly. Sorting the data can be done in two ways: Click on the column to be sorted. When the column is not sorted it will be displayed normally (without an arrow). Open the contextual menu of the Data Grid by right clicking on the column to be sorted and selecting the Sort Descending option. When the column is sorted descending it will show an arrow pointing down. Not available for Color and Layer.
Clear Sorting	Option only available when clearing sorting in the same column that was previously sorted. Option not available when Clear All Sorting has been performed.
Clear All Sorting	Option only available when trying to sort in a different column than the previous one sorted. No further sorting is possible until this option is selected.
Group By This Column	This option organizes the data according to the selected column. See Grouping Data below.
Show/Hide Group by Box	Opens a panel above column titles. Drag column header into panel to group data. Hide Group by Box removes the panel without affecting the grouping of data. See Grouping Data below.
Ungroup	Option is activated when right clicking in the same column as was used to Group.
Remove This Column	Removes the selected column from the data grid. The column is retrieved via the Column/Band Chooser option.
Column/Band Chooser	Add and subtract Bands and Columns. A Band is the header of a number of Columns. Bands are only available for Points and Lines.
Best Fit	Sets the selected column width to best fit the column title and data values.
Best Fit (all columns)	Sets the width of all columns to best fit the column title and data values.
Filter Editor	User defined filter(s) for advanced queries on the point/line/polyline data. Filtering files can be done in different ways: Right clicking to open the contextual menu and selecting the option 'Filter Editor'. Selecting the small filter icon (tiny black pin on right) when you hover over a column header. Pressing it shows a list of options to filter on and results in the same outcome as opening the 'Filter Editor'.
Show Final Panel	Find data more quickly by using this option to search for specific items. Showing this panel is done by clicking 'Show Find Panel' in the contextual menu of the Data Grid; or use the shortcut key Ctrl + F. The panel is added above band/column headers Enter search terms and press Find. Searching the data grid highlights all the corresponding data that was typed in the search box.
Show/Hide Auto Filter Row	Adds a row above the first row of data. Enter filter criterion in this row under the column headers to filter on. In this example, lines are filtered under comment and Easting.

Editing

Editing data grids can be very efficient when selecting multiple cells.
For instance when the colors of multiple items need to be changed, this can be done at the same time.

Most of the data grids support Clipboard functionality:

Ctrl+C: Copy the selected data to the Clipboard.
Ctrl+V: Paste the data from the Clipboard to the selection.

Columns and Bands

A Band is the header of a number of Columns.

Point Bands & Columns

Line Bands & Columns

Polyline Columns (no Bands)

Order of columns:
Done by simply dragging a column header to the desired location. Columns can only be re-ordered within their own Band

Adding & Removing columns:
Columns are removed by dragging them out of the data grid.
Removed columns are retrieved using the Column/Band Chooser and double-clicking on the column name.
The option is available in the pop-up menu when you right click the grid columns.

Grouping Data

Sometimes it is useful to group particular data records that share a common criterion.
Just to illustrate the functionality this example uses the comment column in which the preferred sailing direction is indicated.
Of course other columns can be used for grouping.

To group lines according to sailing direction, right click on the Comment column header and select Group By This Column.
Alternatively right click on any column header and select Show Group By Box which adds a panel above the Bands. Then click on the Comment column header and drag it into the added panel.

Either way the result looks like this:

Click on > to expand the listing:

Lines are now grouped by direction W-E and E-W.

Ungrouping

To ungroup, right click on the Comment column header and select Ungroup.