Items collection

To load and present data with GanttChartView control, initialize the Items collection of the component, setting up GanttChartItem objects representing timeline tasks identified by these main properties: Indentation, Content, Start, Finish, CompletedFinish, IsMilestone, AssignmentsContent, and Predecessors.

Summary items are determined by checking indentation levels of subsequent items, and can be expanded or collapsed. Standard items are presented as rectangular bars, and milestones as special diamond shapes in the view. Completion rate of a standard item is determined by evaluating CompletedFinish value, representing the date and time up to which the effort is currently considered completed. By convention, AssignmentsContent value may be a string that specifies the resource assignments of the item with optional allocation units in classic format: Resource 1, Resource 2 [50%].

Predecessors collection defines item dependencies and are identified by these properties: Item, DependencyType, and Lag. DependencyType may be Finish-to-Start ("FS"), Start-to-Start ("SS"), Finish-to-Finish ("FF"), or Start-to-Finish ("SF"). An optional lag time span is also supported for item dependencies.

var items = new List<GanttChartItem>
{
    new GanttChartItem { Content = "Task 1", IsExpanded = false },
    new GanttChartItem { Content = "Task 1.1", Indentation = 1, 
                         Start = new DateTime(year, month, 2, 8, 0, 0), Finish = new DateTime(year, month, 4, 16, 0, 0) },
    new GanttChartItem { Content = "Task 1.2", Indentation = 1, 
                         Start = new DateTime(year, month, 3, 8, 0, 0), Finish = new DateTime(year, month, 5, 12, 0, 0) },
    new GanttChartItem { Content = "Task 2", IsExpanded = true },
    new GanttChartItem { Content = "Task 2.1", Indentation = 1, 
                         Start = new DateTime(year, month, 2, 8, 0, 0), Finish = new DateTime(year, month, 8, 16, 0, 0), 
                         CompletedFinish = new DateTime(year, month, 5, 16, 0, 0), AssignmentsContent = "Resource 1, Resource 2 [50%]" },
    new GanttChartItem { Content = "Task 2.2", Indentation = 1 },
    new GanttChartItem { Content = "Task 2.2.1", Indentation = 2, 
                         Start = new DateTime(year, month, 11, 8, 0, 0), Finish = new DateTime(year, month, 12, 16, 0, 0), 
                         CompletedFinish = new DateTime(year, month, 12, 16, 0, 0), AssignmentsContent = "Resource 2" },
    new GanttChartItem { Content = "Task 2.2.2", Indentation = 2, 
                         Start = new DateTime(year, month, 12, 12, 0, 0), Finish = new DateTime(year, month, 14, 16, 0, 0), 
                         AssignmentsContent = "Resource 2" },
    new GanttChartItem { Content = "Task 3", Indentation = 1, 
                         Start = new DateTime(year, month, 15, 16, 0, 0), IsMilestone = true }
};
items[3].Predecessors = new List<PredecessorItem> { new PredecessorItem { Item = items[0], DependencyType = DependencyType.StartStart } };
items[7].Predecessors = new List<PredecessorItem> { new PredecessorItem { Item = items[6], Lag = TimeSpan.FromHours(2) } };
items[8].Predecessors = new List<PredecessorItem> { new PredecessorItem { Item = items[4] }, 
                                                    new PredecessorItem { Item = items[5] } };
GanttChartView.Items = items;

                        

Drag and drop

End users may use drag and drop operations to reschedule bars, update start, finish and completion values independently, and create all types of dependencies between items directly from the Gantt Chart area, besides editing values in the attached data grid.

Move operations

MoveItem, MoveItemUp, and MoveItemDown operations allow moving specific items in the hierarchy, with or without child items. You may even add a special icon column to allow visual drag and drop operations for moving items around.

Project management features and Microsoft® Project compatibility

Besides data visualization features, the component offers built-in computation functions such as GetDuration, GetEffort, GetCompletedEffort, GetCompletion, GetCost, etc., project management algorithms such as baseline initialization and visualization, auto scheduling, critical path enumeration, work optimization, and allocation and resource leveling, optionally based on pre-initialized generic or individual resource usage costs and material resource quantities. Circular dependencies are accepted by default, but are detected and removed automatically if you enable dependency constraints.

Gantt Chart component supports loading and saving data in Microsoft Project® XML format with LoadProjectXml and SaveProjectXml methods, allowing you to import and export Microsoft Project® files with ease.

Moreover, ProjectXmlSerializer class offers support for further customizing the way actual loading and saving operations occur, allowing you to inject custom code for XML parsing and generation with handler methods on specific events.

Microsoft® Excel adapter

Using Project XML formatted content as input, you can also use DlhSoft's ProjectManagementXlsx Adapter API (open source) to generate Excel® files and share task information with more ease. And, of course, you import tasks from an Excel® sheet through Microsoft® Project XML format back into a Gantt Chart component, too.

Excel® serialization support is available as well through a separate NuGet package.

The adapter requires a license for Project Management Framework. Web Library licensees can order a free license for the secondary product.

var excelBytes = File.ReadAllBytes(source);
var projectXml = ProjectManagementXslx.Adapter.GetProjectXml(excelBytes);

                        

var projectXml = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(File.ReadAllBytes(source));
var excelBytes = ProjectManagementXslx.Adapter.GetExcelBytes(projectXml);

                        

Printing and exporting

The component offers a Print method that may be called to initiate a direct print operation for their content. Moreover, you can export HTML out of the component content by calling Export method on the fly. Both methods support custom arguments, such as indicating which grid columns, row range, and timeline period to be included as output. Also, setting up rotate argument value to true enables direct landscape printing.

You may also initiate printing and document exporting on the client side using the print and exportContent methods of the JavaScript® component object (that you can find from the document using the ClientID value).