Display ToolTips on ASP.NET 1.x DataGrids

Presenting data to your users is always an important topic of discussion when it comes to user interface design. Usually a big concern for the GUI developer is how to maximize the available screen space and still maintain a usable interface.

If you try to cram too much information onto one page you will often be left with an interface that requires scrolling, which is a big nuisance for users. With headers and footers, navigation bars, alerts and personalized information taking up valuable screen space the actual amount of usable space on each page is sometimes quite small.

Taking advantage of the space you do have requires some thoughtful design and creativity. A common approach is to display only the most critical information, and if users require more they need to dig deeper. The problem with this approach is that constantly firing post backs to dig down into data can be time consuming for the user.

The purpose of this tutorial is to allow users to view additional information about an item without having to send multiple requests to the server. The term “ToolTip” is probably one you’re familiar with, and is more commonly used in desktop applications, but can also be implemented in web applications with some creativity.