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)
);

Note

Instead of hardcoding the color values like we just did, we can achieve greater flexibility in terms of colors by using the palette and color functions. Please refer to Palettes topic for detailed guidance on how to use them.

The last step is to include the component mixins:

@include css-vars($custom-theme);

Demo

Note

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

API References

Additional Resources

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Angular Grid Multi-column Headers Overview