Recommendations for Implementing Complex ASP.NET Grid with AJAX Functionality

I'm considering going at this myself because my requirements are particular and highly customized:

• The grid is bound to a collection of complicated objects, each of which may contain child and grandchild objects. Depending on data and context, the template'd cells vary from TextBoxes to ComboBoxes to Calendars to a combination of controls.

• Te开发者_StackOverflow中文版xtBox cells have Google-style auto-complete functionality. Also each TextBox cell can expand into a small TreeView pane that allows hierarchy-navigating selection of a value should auto-complete be insufficient.

• Values from other controls can be drag-and-dropped into cells.

• Columns are re-sizable and re-orderable. Clicking their headers sorts data.

• All of the above is AJAX / client-side / Web 2.0 of course.

Has anyone built anything similar from scratch? Or used an effective tool to accomplish this goal? How well would Telerik meet my specs? Is it right to have the hunch that something this specific is best done by taking a Microsoft GridView and extending it myself?

Thanks for your two cents.

If you have a SQL Server-based application, you could consider using ASP.NET Dynamic Data as a starting point. I have used it for the first time a few weeks ago and found it quire useful. It provides a lot of functionality, but you still can customise nearly everything. However, seeing your requirements you probably will have to customise a lot of things.

If you intend to use Telerik based on the specification you put forth, browse the online demos of their Ajax grid first. Most of the features are supported I think (some by integrating other Telerik controls in the grid like RadComboBox with auto-complete), for the rest you should count on your custom coding.