In this article I will explain with an example, how to implement inline editing in GridView in ASP.Net MVC Razor.
Since MVC does not have a GridView control, this article explains how to perform inline Row Edit operations i.e. Edit, Update and Cancel operations for a particular Row in WebGrid using Buttons in ASP.Net MVC Razor.
This article will illustrate how to build an Editable WebGrid using jQuery AJAX and Entity Framework in ASP.Net MVC Razor.
Note: For beginners in ASP.Net MVC and Entity Framework, please refer my article ASP.Net MVC: Simple Entity Framework Tutorial with example. It covers all the information needed for connecting and configuring Entity Framework.
 
 
Database
I have made use of the following table Customers with the schema as follows. CustomerId is an Auto-Increment (Identity) column.
MVC Inline Editing: Implement Inline Editing in GridView in ASP.Net MVC
 
I have already inserted few records in the table.
MVC Inline Editing: Implement Inline Editing in GridView in ASP.Net MVC
 
Note: You can download the database table SQL by clicking the download link below.
          Download SQL file
 
 
Entity Framework Model
Once the Entity Framework is configured and connected to the database table, the Model will look as shown below.
MVC Inline Editing: Implement Inline Editing in GridView in ASP.Net MVC
 
 
Controller
The Controller consists of two Action methods.
Action method for handling GET operation
Inside this Action method, all the records from the Customers table is returned to the View as a Generic List collection.
Before returning to the View, a dummy (empty) record is added to the Generic List collection at first position (Index).
Note: The empty record is inserted so that it can be used to add new row to the WebGrid by the Client Side jQuery functions.
 
Action method for Updating
Inside this Action method, the Customer object is received as parameter. The CustomerId value of the received Customer object is used to reference the Customer record in the Customer Entities.
Once the record is referenced, the values of Name and Country are updated and the changes are updated into the Customer table.
public class HomeController : Controller
{
    // GET: Home
    public ActionResult Index()
    {
        CustomersEntities entities = new CustomersEntities();
        List<Customer> customers = entities.Customers.ToList();
        return View(customers.ToList());
    }
 
    [HttpPost]
    public ActionResult UpdateCustomer(Customer customer)
    {
        using (CustomersEntities entities = new CustomersEntities())
        {
            Customer updatedCustomer = (from c in entities.Customers
                                        where c.CustomerId == customer.CustomerId
                                        select c).FirstOrDefault();
            updatedCustomer.Name = customer.Name;
            updatedCustomer.Country = customer.Country;
            entities.SaveChanges();
        }
 
        return new EmptyResult();
    }
}
 
 
View
Inside the View, in the very first line the Customer Entity is declared as IEnumerable which specifies that the Model will be available as a Collection.
Display
The WebGrid is initialized with the Model i.e. IEnumerable collection of Customer Entity class objects as source.
Note: For more information on usage of WebGrid, please refer WebGrid Step By Step Tutorial with example in ASP.Net MVC.
 
Below the WebGrid, two TextBoxes (Name and Country) and an Add Button has been placed. The Add Button has been assigned a jQuery click event handler.
Edit
When the Edit Button is clicked, the reference of the HTML Table row is determined and the HTML SPAN elements are made hidden while the TextBoxes are made visible in the Name and Country columns of the HTML Table.
Update
When the Update Button is clicked, the reference of the HTML Table row is determined and the updated values are fetched from the respective TextBoxes of Name and Country columns while the CustomerId is determined from the HTML SPAN element of the CustomerId column.
The values of CustomerId, Name and Country are passed to the UpdateCustomer Action method using jQuery AJAX call.
Once the response is received, the HTML SPAN elements are made visible and the TextBoxes are made hidden for the Name and Country columns of the HTML Table row.
Cancel
When the Cancel Button is clicked, the reference of the HTML Table row is determined and the HTML SPAN elements are made visible while the TextBoxes are made hidden in the Name and Country columns of the HTML Table row.
@model IEnumerable<Customer>
 
@{
    Layout = null;
    WebGrid webGrid = new WebGrid(source: Model, canPage: true, canSort: false);
}
 
<!DOCTYPE html>
 
<html>
<head>
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width"/>
    <title>Index</title>
    <style type="text/css">
        body {
            font-family: Arial;
            font-size: 10pt;
        }
 
        .Grid {
            border: 1px solid #ccc;
            border-collapse: collapse;
        }
 
        .Grid th {
            background-color: #F7F7F7;
            font-weight: bold;
        }
 
        .Grid th, .Grid td {
            padding: 5px;
            width: 150px;
            border: 1px solid #ccc;
        }
 
        .Grid, .Grid table td {
            border: 0px solid #ccc;
        }
 
        .Grid th a, .Grid th a:visited {
            color: #333;
        }
    </style>
</head>
<body>
    @webGrid.GetHtml(
        htmlAttributes: new { @id = "WebGrid", @class = "Grid" },
        columns: webGrid.Columns(
                 webGrid.Column(header: "Customer Id", format: @<span class="label">@item.CustomerId</span>, style: "CustomerId" ),
                 webGrid.Column(header: "Name", format: @<span><span class="label">@item.Name</span>
                            <input class="text" type="text" value="@item.Name" style="display:none"/></span>, style: "Name"),
                 webGrid.Column(header: "Country", format: @<span><span class="label">@item.Country</span>
                                <input class="text" type="text" value="@item.Country" style="display:none"/></span>, style: "Country"),
                 webGrid.Column(format:@<span class="link">
                        <a class="Edit" href="javascript:;">Edit</a>
                        <a class="Update" href="javascript:;" style="display:none">Update</a>
                        <a class="Cancel" href="javascript:;" style="display:none">Cancel</a>
                    </span> )))
 
    <script type="text/javascript" src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.8.3/jquery.min.js"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript" src="https://ajax.cdnjs.com/ajax/libs/json2/20110223/json2.js"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript">
        //Edit event handler.
        $("body").on("click", "#WebGrid TBODY .Edit", function () {
            var row = $(this).closest("tr");
            $("td", row).each(function () {
                if ($(this).find(".text").length > 0) {
                    $(this).find(".text").show();
                    $(this).find(".label").hide();
                }
            });
            row.find(".Update").show();
            row.find(".Cancel").show();
            $(this).hide();
        });
 
        //Update event handler.
        $("body").on("click", "#WebGrid TBODY .Update", function () {
            var row = $(this).closest("tr");
            $("td", row).each(function () {
                if ($(this).find(".text").length > 0) {
                    var span = $(this).find(".label");
                    var input = $(this).find(".text");
                    span.html(input.val());
                    span.show();
                    input.hide();
                }
            });
            row.find(".Edit").show();
            row.find(".Cancel").hide();
            $(this).hide();
 
            var customer = {};
            customer.CustomerId = row.find(".CustomerId").find(".label").html();
            customer.Name = row.find(".Name").find(".label").html();
            customer.Country = row.find(".Country").find(".label").html();
            $.ajax({
                type: "POST",
                url: "/Home/UpdateCustomer",
                data: '{customer:' + JSON.stringify(customer) + '}',
                contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8",
                dataType: "json"
            });
        });
 
        //Cancel event handler.
        $("body").on("click", "#WebGrid TBODY .Cancel", function () {
            var row = $(this).closest("tr");
            $("td", row).each(function () {
                if ($(this).find(".text").length > 0) {
                    var span = $(this).find(".label");
                    var input = $(this).find(".text");
                    input.val(span.html());
                    span.show();
                    input.hide();
                }
            });
            row.find(".Edit").show();
            row.find(".Update").hide();
            $(this).hide();
        });
    </script>
</body>
</html>
 
 
Screenshot
MVC Inline Editing: Implement Inline Editing in GridView in ASP.Net MVC
 
 
Downloads
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