I have been attempting to incorporate dhtmlxGrid into Dataface to spice up the editing of related data on web forms. Since Dataface is open source under GPL, any library that I choose to include must also be open source and compatible with GPL. dhtmlxGrid standard edition fits this criterion so I decided to take it for a spin.

Unfortunately the standard edition appears to be no more than a trial version of the software as it does not contain any ability to extract data from the grid (that I can see). Without this ability, it is impossible to actually save, submit, or send data from the grid to a database or a form. What good is a grid like this if it cannot be saved? All of the features that would enable saving data are reserved for the professional edition which has quite a restrictive commercial license which is, safe to say, not compatible with GPL.

I do however give them props for releasing the standard edition under GPL. They could have just released a trial version with no distribution rights at all. As it is, at least I can dig into the code and add the necessary functionality myself.

I am working with the Firefox Javascript debugger to try to see where the data is hidden. This will be a little time consuming, but the end result will be worth it, I think.