How can I use DisplayName data annotations for column headers in WebGrid?

Question

I have a Car class that I\'m trying to display in an MVC 3 view using the WebGrid helper. Below are the Car and it\'s metadata class.

Car class:

[Meta         


        

Answer 1

Ugly as hell but it could work:

grid.Column(
    "CarName", 
    ModelMetadata.FromLambdaExpression(
        car => car.CarName, 
        new ViewDataDictionary(new Car())
    ).DisplayName
)

The problem is that the WebGrid helper is entirely based on dynamic data, absolutely no strong typing and that's one of the reasons why I hate it. The WebMatrix team at Microsoft must be real fans of the C# 4.0 dynamic feature as their entire API takes only weakly typed objects :-)

MvcContrib Grid is much better.