Binding Grid To JSON In AngularJS, Using ASP.NET MVC 5

Introduction

In this article, we will learn how to bind data in jqxGrid plugin, using MVC5, AngularJS, and EntityFramework.

Prerequisites

As I said before, we are going to use jqxGrid plugin to display data in our MVC application; for this, you must have Visual Studio 2015 (.NET Framework 4.5.2) and SQL Server.

SQL Database part

Here, you can find the scripts to create database and table.

Create Database
USE [master]
GO
/****** Object: Database [CustomerDB] Script Date: 9/11/2016 4:54:28 AM ******/
CREATE DATABASE [CustomerDB]
CONTAINMENT = NONE
ON PRIMARY
( NAME = N'CustomerDB', FILENAME = N'c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL11.MSSQLSERVER\MSSQL\DATA\CustomerDB.mdf' , SIZE = 3072KB , MAXSIZE = UNLIMITED, FILEGROWTH = 1024KB )
LOG ON
( NAME = N'CustomerDB_log', FILENAME = N'c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL11.MSSQLSERVER\MSSQL\DATA\CustomerDB_log.ldf' , SIZE = 1024KB , MAXSIZE = 2048GB , FILEGROWTH = 10%)
GO
ALTER DATABASE [CustomerDB] SET COMPATIBILITY_LEVEL = 110
GO
IF (1 = FULLTEXTSERVICEPROPERTY('IsFullTextInstalled'))
begin
EXEC [CustomerDB].[dbo].[sp_fulltext_database] @action = 'enable'
end
GO
ALTER DATABASE [CustomerDB] SET ANSI_NULL_DEFAULT OFF
GO
ALTER DATABASE [CustomerDB] SET ANSI_NULLS OFF
GO
ALTER DATABASE [CustomerDB] SET ANSI_PADDING OFF
GO
ALTER DATABASE [CustomerDB] SET ANSI_WARNINGS OFF
GO
ALTER DATABASE [CustomerDB] SET ARITHABORT OFF
GO
ALTER DATABASE [CustomerDB] SET AUTO_CLOSE OFF
GO
ALTER DATABASE [CustomerDB] SET AUTO_CREATE_STATISTICS ON
GO
ALTER DATABASE [CustomerDB] SET AUTO_SHRINK OFF
GO
ALTER DATABASE [CustomerDB] SET AUTO_UPDATE_STATISTICS ON
GO
ALTER DATABASE [CustomerDB] SET CURSOR_CLOSE_ON_COMMIT OFF
GO
ALTER DATABASE [CustomerDB] SET CURSOR_DEFAULT GLOBAL
GO
ALTER DATABASE [CustomerDB] SET CONCAT_NULL_YIELDS_NULL OFF
GO
ALTER DATABASE [CustomerDB] SET NUMERIC_ROUNDABORT OFF
GO
ALTER DATABASE [CustomerDB] SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER OFF
GO
ALTER DATABASE [CustomerDB] SET RECURSIVE_TRIGGERS OFF
GO
ALTER DATABASE [CustomerDB] SET DISABLE_BROKER
GO
ALTER DATABASE [CustomerDB] SET AUTO_UPDATE_STATISTICS_ASYNC OFF
GO
ALTER DATABASE [CustomerDB] SET DATE_CORRELATION_OPTIMIZATION OFF
GO
ALTER DATABASE [CustomerDB] SET TRUSTWORTHY OFF
GO
ALTER DATABASE [CustomerDB] SET ALLOW_SNAPSHOT_ISOLATION OFF
GO
ALTER DATABASE [CustomerDB] SET PARAMETERIZATION SIMPLE
GO
ALTER DATABASE [CustomerDB] SET READ_COMMITTED_SNAPSHOT OFF
GO
ALTER DATABASE [CustomerDB] SET HONOR_BROKER_PRIORITY OFF
GO
ALTER DATABASE [CustomerDB] SET RECOVERY SIMPLE
GO
ALTER DATABASE [CustomerDB] SET MULTI_USER
GO
ALTER DATABASE [CustomerDB] SET PAGE_VERIFY CHECKSUM
GO
ALTER DATABASE [CustomerDB] SET DB_CHAINING OFF
GO
ALTER DATABASE [CustomerDB] SET FILESTREAM( NON_TRANSACTED_ACCESS = OFF )
GO
ALTER DATABASE [CustomerDB] SET TARGET_RECOVERY_TIME = 0 SECONDS
GO
ALTER DATABASE [CustomerDB] SET READ_WRITE
GO

Create Table

USE [CustomerDB]
GO
/****** Object: Table [dbo].[Customers] Script Date: 9/11/2016 4:53:43 AM ******/
SET ANSI_NULLS ON
GO
SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON
GO
SET ANSI_PADDING ON
GO
CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Customers](
[CustomerID] [int] NOT NULL,
[CustomerName] [varchar](50) NULL,
[CustomerEmail] [varchar](50) NULL,
[CustomerZipCode] [int] NULL,
[CustomerCountry] [varchar](50) NULL,
[CustomerCity] [varchar](50) NULL,
CONSTRAINT [PK_Customers] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED
(
[CustomerID] ASC
)WITH (PAD_INDEX = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS = ON) ON [PRIMARY]
) ON [PRIMARY]
GO
SET ANSI_PADDING OFF
GO

After creating the table, you can add some records, as shown below.

table

Create your MVC application

Now, open Visual Studio and select File >> New Project. Then, a new dialog will pop up with the name New Project. Select ASP.NET Web Application (.NET Framework), name your project, and click OK.

Next, a new dialog will pop up for selecting the template. We are going choose MVC template and click OK.

MVC

After creating our project, we add ADO.NET Entity Data Model.

Adding ADO.NET Entity Data Model

For adding ADO.NET Entity Framework, right click on the project name, click Add > Add New Item.

A dialog box will pop up. Inside Visual C#, select Data >> ADO.NET Entity Data Model, and enter name for your Dbcontext model as DbcontextCustomer.
Finally, click Add.

At this level, we are going to choose EF Designer from database, as show below.

After clicking Next button, a dialog will pop up with the name Connection Properties. You need to enter your server name and connect to a database panel, selecting database via dropdown List (Customer DB). Then, click OK.

connection properties

Now, the dialog Entity Data Model wizard will pop up for choosing object which we need to use. In our case, we choose Customers table and click Finish. Finally, we see that EDMX model generates Customer class.

model

Create a Controller

Now, we are going to create a Controller. Right click on the Controllers folder > Add > Controller> selecting MVC5 Controller – Empty > click Add.

Enter Controller name (‘CustomersController’).

CustomersController.cs

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.Mvc;
namespace AngularJS_Grid_Binding_To_JSON.Controllers
{
public class CustomersController : Controller
{
//Dbcontext
private CustomerDBEntities context = new CustomerDBEntities();
public ActionResult Index()
{
return View();
}
// GET: Customers
public JsonResult GetCustomers()
{
var CustomersList = context.Customers.ToList();
return Json(CustomersList, JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet);
}
}
}

As you can see, I have created GetCustomers() action to retrieve the data from Customers table in JSON format.

Adding View

It’s easy to do. Just right click on Index() action, select Add View. A dialog box pops up. Write a name for your View and click Add.

Note: Don’t forget to download the following libraries from jqxwidgets.

<link href="~/Content/jqx.base.css" rel="stylesheet" />
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/angularjs/1.4.7/angular.min.js"></script>
<script src="~/Scripts/jquery-1.10.2.min.js"></script>
<script src="~/Scripts/jqxcore.js"></script>
<script src="~/Scripts/jqxdata.js"></script>
<script src="~/Scripts/jqxbuttons.js"></script>
<script src="~/Scripts/jqxcheckbox.js"></script>
<script src="~/Scripts/jqxgrid.js"></script>
<script src="~/Scripts/jqxgrid.selection.js"></script>
<script src="~/Scripts/jqxmenu.js"></script>
<script src="~/Scripts/jqxscrollbar.js"></script>
<script src="~/Scripts/jqxgrid.sort.js"></script>
<script src="~/Scripts/jqxgrid.columnsresize.js"></script>
<script src="~/Scripts/jqxangular.js"></script>
<script src="~/Scripts/demos.js"></script>

Index cshtml

@{
ViewBag.Title = "Index";
}
@section scripts{
<link href="~/Content/jqx.base.css" rel="stylesheet" />
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/angularjs/1.4.7/angular.min.js"></script>
<script src="~/Scripts/jquery-1.10.2.min.js"></script>
<script src="~/Scripts/jqxcore.js"></script>
<script src="~/Scripts/jqxdata.js"></script>
<script src="~/Scripts/jqxbuttons.js"></script>
<script src="~/Scripts/jqxcheckbox.js"></script>
<script src="~/Scripts/jqxgrid.js"></script>
<script src="~/Scripts/jqxgrid.selection.js"></script>
<script src="~/Scripts/jqxmenu.js"></script>
<script src="~/Scripts/jqxscrollbar.js"></script>
<script src="~/Scripts/jqxgrid.sort.js"></script>
<script src="~/Scripts/jqxgrid.columnsresize.js"></script>
<script src="~/Scripts/jqxangular.js"></script>
<script src="~/Scripts/demos.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
var app = angular.module('myApp', ['jqwidgets']);
app.controller('GridCtrl', function ($scope, $http) {
$scope.createWidget = false;
$http({
method: 'GET',
url: 'GetCustomers'
}).success(function (data, status) {
// prepare the data
var source = {
datatype: "json",
datafields: [
{ name: 'CustomerID', type: 'int' },
{ name: 'CustomerName', type: 'string' },
{ name: 'CustomerEmail', type: 'string' },
{ name: 'CustomerZipCode', type: 'int' },
{ name: 'CustomerCountry', type: 'string' },
{ name: 'CustomerCity', type: 'string' }
],
id: 'id',
localdata: data
};
var dataAdapter = new $.jqx.dataAdapter(source);
$scope.gridSettings =
{
width: 950,
source: dataAdapter,
columnsresize: true,
columns: [
{ text: 'Customer ID', datafield: 'CustomerID', width: 250 },
{ text: 'Customer Name', datafield: 'CustomerName', width: 250 },
{ text: 'Customer Email', datafield: 'CustomerEmail', width: 250 },
{ text: 'Customer ZipCode', datafield: 'CustomerZipCode', width: 250 },
{ text: 'Customer Country', datafield: 'CustomerCountry', width: 250 },
{ text: 'Customer City', datafield: 'CustomerCity', width: 250 }
]
};
//now create the widget.
$scope.createWidget = true;
}).error(function (data, status) {
console.log('Something Wrong');
});
});
</script>
}
<h2>AngularJS Grid Binding To JSON</h2>
<div ng-app="myApp" ng-controller="GridCtrl">
<jqx-grid jqx-create="createWidget" jqx-settings="gridSettings"></jqx-grid>
</div>

Output