the spreadsheet control is useful anytime you want to make a spreadsheet model available on your intranet so that others can change the input and instantly view the recalculated results. examples include a mortgage calculator and payment schedule model, a product break-even model, and a sales forecasting model.
this control is also useful for any kind of cross-tabulated or grid-based data entry, especially when you need to use formulas with automatic recalculation. examples include expense reports, timesheets, and budgets.
the spreadsheet control has the ability to bind cells to properties of other objects on the page and then automatically update the cell and its dependents when the source indicates that the property value has changed. this makes it possible to feed real-time data into the spreadsheet for scenarios such as a stock portfolio.
the spreadsheet control is specifically designed to keep listening for new values and recalculating even when you are editing other formulas or formatting other cells in the spreadsheet you're working on.
the chart component (shown in figure 1-2) is comparable to a small version of excel charting, supporting most of the two-dimensional chart types in excel 2000 as well as a polar chart type. another big feature is that the chart control can display many plots at once, allowing you to create a small-multiple design—in other words, a collection of plots that vary by one property and can be compared at a glance. a chart can be data-bound to the spreadsheet control, the pivottable control, or an ado recordset object, or it can be filled with literal data values. when bound to a data source, a chart control will update whenever the source data changes.
see also
