Angular Grid Multi-column Headers Overview

    IgxGrid supports multi-column headers which allows you to group columns by placing them under a common multi headers. Each multi-column headers group could be a representation of combinations between other groups or columns within the Material UI grid.

    Angular Grid Multi-column Headers Overview Example

    The declaration of Multi-column header could be achieved by wrapping a set of columns into igx-column-group component with header title passed.

    <igx-grid [data]="data" [allowFiltering]="true">
    <igx-column-group header="Contact Information">
        <igx-column sortable="true" resizable="true" field="Phone"></igx-column>
        <igx-column sortable="true" resizable="true" field="Fax"></igx-column>
        <igx-column sortable="true" resizable="true" field="PostalCode"></igx-column>
    </igx-column-group>
</igx-grid>

    For achieving n-th level of nested headers, the declaration above should be followed. So by nesting igx-column-group leads to the desired result.

    <igx-grid [data]="data" [allowFiltering]="true" [moving]="true">
    <igx-column-group header="General Information">
        <igx-column sortable="true" resizable="true" field="CompanyName"></igx-column>
        <igx-column-group header="Person Details">
            <igx-column [pinned]="false" sortable="true" resizable="true" field="ContactName"></igx-column>
            <igx-column sortable="true" resizable="true" field="ContactTitle"></igx-column>
        </igx-column-group>
    </igx-column-group>
</igx-grid>

    Every igx-column-group supports moving, pinning and hiding.

    Note

    When there is a set of columns and column groups, pinning works only for top level column parents. More specifically pinning per nested column groups or columns is not allowed.
    Please note that when using Pinning with Multi-Column Headers, the entire Group gets pinned.
    Moving between columns and column groups is allowed only when they are at the same level in the hierarchy and both are in the same group.
    When columns/column-groups are not wrapped by current group which means they are top level columns, moving is allowed between whole visible columns.

    <igx-grid [data]="data" [allowFiltering]="true" [moving]="true">
    <igx-column-group [pinned]="true" header="General Information">
        <igx-column sortable="true" resizable="true" field="CompanyName"></igx-column>
    </igx-column-group>
    <igx-column sortable="true" resizable="true" field="Phone"></igx-column>
    <igx-column sortable="true" resizable="true" field="Fax"></igx-column>
    <igx-column sortable="true" resizable="true" field="PostalCode"></igx-column>
</igx-grid>

    Multi-column Header Template

    Each of the column groups of the grid can be templated separately. The column group expects ng-template tag decorated with the igxHeader directive. The ng-template is provided with the column group object as a context.

    ...
<igx-column-group header="General Information">
    <ng-template igxHeader let-columnGroup>
        {{ columnGroup.header | uppercase }}
    </ng-template>
    ...
</igx-column-group>
...

    If you want to re-use a single template for several column groups, you could set the headerTemplate property of the column group like this:

    <ng-template #columnGroupHeaderTemplate let-columnGroup>
    {{ columnGroup.header | uppercase }}
</ng-template>

...
<igx-column-group header="General Information" [headerTemplate]="columnGroupHeaderTemplate">
    ...
</igx-column-group>
<igx-column-group header="Address Information" [headerTemplate]="columnGroupHeaderTemplate">
    ...
</igx-column-group>
...
    Note

    If a column header is retemplated and the grid moving is enabled, you have to set the draggable attribute of corresponding column to false on the templated elements, so that you can handle any of the events that are applied!

    <ng-template igxHeader>
    <igx-icon [attr.draggable]="false" (click)="onClick()"></igx-icon>
</ng-template>

    The following sample demonstrates how to implement collapsible column groups using header templates.

    Styling

    To get started with styling the sorting behavior, we need to import the index file, where all the theme functions and component mixins live:

    @use "igniteui-angular/theming" as *;

// IMPORTANT: Prior to Ignite UI for Angular version 13 use:
// @import '~igniteui-angular/lib/core/styles/themes/index';

    Following the simplest approach, we create a new theme that extends the grid-theme and accepts the $header-background, $header-text-color, $header-border-width, $header-border-style and $header-border-color parameters.

    $custom-theme: grid-theme(
    $header-background: #e0f3ff,
    $header-text-color: #e41c77,
    $header-border-width: 1px,
    $header-border-style: solid,
    $header-border-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.08)
);

    The last step is to include the component mixins:

    @include grid($custom-theme);
    Note

    If the component is using an Emulated ViewEncapsulation, it is necessary to penetrate this encapsulation using ::ng-deep:

    :host {
   ::ng-deep {
       @include grid($custom-theme);
   }
}

    Defining a color palette

    Instead of hardcoding the color values like we just did, we can achieve greater flexibility in terms of colors by using the igx-palette and igx-color functions.

    igx-palette generates a color palette based on the primary and secondary colors that are passed:

    $light-blue-color: #e0f3ff;
$deep-pink-color: #e41c77;

$custom-palette: palette($primary: $light-blue-color, $deep-pink-color);

    And then with igx-color we can easily retrieve color from the palette.

    $custom-theme: grid-theme(
    $header-background: color($custom-palette, "primary", 500),
    $header-text-color: color($custom-palette, "secondary", 500),
    $header-border-width: 1px,
    $header-border-style: solid,
    $header-border-color: color($custom-palette, "grays", 200)
);
    Note

    The igx-color and igx-palette are powerful functions for generating and retrieving colors. Please refer to Palettes topic for detailed guidance on how to use them.

    Using Schemas

    Going further with the theming engine, you can build a robust and flexible structure that benefits from schemas. A schema is a recipe of a theme.

    Extend one of the two predefined schemas, that are provided for every component, in this case - _light-grid:

    // Extending the light grid schema
$custom-grid-schema: extend($_light-grid,
    (
        header-background: (igx-color:('primary', 500)),
        header-text-color: (igx-color:('secondary', 500)),
        header-border-width: 1px,
        header-border-style: solid,
        header-border-color: (igx-color:('grays', 200))
    )
);

    In order to apply our custom schema we have to extend one of the globals (light or dark), which is basically pointing out the components with a custom schema, and after that add it to the respective component themes:

    Extending the global light-schema
$my-custom-schema: extend($light-schema, 
    (
        igx-grid: $custom-grid-schema
    )
);

// Defining our custom theme with the custom schema
$custom-theme: grid-theme(
  $palette: $custom-palette,
  $schema: $my-custom-schema
);

    Don't forget to include the themes in the same way as it was demonstrated above.

    Demo

    Note

    The sample will not be affected by the selected global theme from Change Theme.

    Known Issues and Limitations

    • Using Grid with multi-column headers on IE11 requires the explicit import of the array polyfill in polyfill.ts of the angular application.

      import 'core-js/es7/array';

    API References

    Additional Resources

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