Adding Row Numbers

In some occasions you may want to display row numbers in Telerik RadGrid- for example to correlate the grid items when exporting the control's structure to Excel or just for easier navigation/access. The functionality is not built-in in the product, however such layout is achievable with a few lines of code:

1. Subscribe to the ItemDataBound event of the grid

2. Check whether the currently bound item is GridDataItem

3. Extract the ItemIndex of the e.Item instance and display its value in a control residing in GridTemplateColumn's ItemTemplate.

In the example code below the item index is presented in MS Label control which is wrapped in template column:

<telerik:RadGrid RenderMode="Lightweight" ID="RadGrid1" DataSourceID="SqlDataSource1" AllowSorting="True"
  Skin="Vista" runat="server" Width="95%" OnItemDataBound="RadGrid1_ItemDataBound">
  <MasterTableView>
    <Columns>
      <telerik:GridTemplateColumn UniqueName="TemplateColumn" HeaderText="Row number">
        <ItemTemplate>
          <asp:Label ID="numberLabel" runat="server" Width="30px" />
        </ItemTemplate>
        <HeaderStyle Width="30px" />
      </telerik:GridTemplateColumn>
    </Columns>
  </MasterTableView>
</telerik:RadGrid>
<br />
<asp:SqlDataSource ID="SqlDataSource1" runat="server" ConnectionString="<%$ ConnectionStrings:NorthwindConnectionString %>"
      SelectCommand="SELECT [CustomerID], [CompanyName], [ContactName], [ContactTitle], [Address], [City], [Region], [PostalCode] FROM [Customers]">
</asp:SqlDataSource>

protected void RadGrid1_ItemDataBound(object sender, Telerik.Web.UI.GridItemEventArgs e)
{
    if (e.Item is GridDataItem && e.Item.OwnerTableView.DataSourceID == "SqlDataSource1")
    {
        Label lbl = e.Item.FindControl("numberLabel") as Label;
        lbl.Text = (e.Item.ItemIndex + 1).ToString();
    }
}

Protected Sub RadGrid1_ItemDataBound(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As Telerik.Web.UI.GridItemEventArgs)
    If (TypeOf e.Item Is GridDataItem AndAlso e.Item.OwnerTableView.DataSourceID = "SqlDataSource1") Then
        Dim lbl As Label = CType(e.Item.FindControl("numberLabel"), Label)
        lbl.Text = (e.Item.ItemIndex + 1).ToString
    End If
End Sub