How to access Kendo Grid's column menu only from outside the grid and add the filter option for specific columns in the column header

Question

I am new to Kendo Grid and trying to use the columnMenu option. I need to access the column Menu function (only the ability to show/hide columns from a button outside the grid.

Answer 1

This is a pretty old thread, but after searching for similar things I found a post in the Terlerik forum where a user makes reference to "kendoColumnMenu". For as much as I can tell this is undocumented.

It also shows how to add additional options to the menu that is created for saving grid state or other configuration options of your choice.

Here is the link to the post which also contains a link to the DOJO with working code: Click Here

Hopefully this will help someone else searching for this.

Answer 2

Not sure I got all requirements right, but something like this should work:

JS:

var grid = $("#grid").kendoGrid({
    dataSource: [{
        foo: "foo",
        bar: "bar"
    }],
    filterable: true,
    columnMenu: true
}).getKendoGrid();

function showMenu() {
    var offset = $(this).offset();
    var fieldName = $(this).data("field");
    var th = $(grid.thead).find("th[data-field='" + fieldName + "']");

    $(th).find(".k-header-column-menu:first").click();
    $(".k-column-menu").parent().css({
        top: offset.top + $(this).outerHeight(),
        left: offset.left
    });
}

$(document).on("click", ".grid-menu", showMenu);

CSS:

.k-header-column-menu {
    visibility: hidden
}

HTML:

<div id='grid'></div>
<div>
    <button class='grid-menu' data-field="foo">Show foo menu</button>
    <button class='grid-menu' data-field="bar">Show bar menu</button>
</div>

(demo)

Another approach for just showing a menu with checkboxes while keeping the filter menu in the grid header:

Grid:

var grid = $("#grid").kendoGrid({
    dataSource: [{
        foo: "foo",
        bar: "bar"
    }],
    filterable: true,
    columnMenu: false
}).getKendoGrid();

Create menu entries from grid.columns:

var ds = [];
for (var i = 0, max = grid.columns.length; i < max; i++) {
    ds.push({
        encoded: false,
        text: "<label><input type='checkbox' checked='checked' " +
              " class='check' data-field='" + grid.columns[i].field + 
              "'/>" + grid.columns[i].field + "</label>"
    });
}

Menu:

$("#menu").kendoMenu({
    dataSource: [{
        text: "Menu",
        items: ds
    }],
    openOnClick: true,
    closeOnClick: false,
    open: function () {
        var selector;
        // deselect hidden columns
        $.each(grid.columns, function () {
            if (this.hidden) {
                selector = "input[data-field='" + this.field + "']";
                $(selector).prop("checked", false);
            }
        });
    },
    select: function (e) {
        // ignore click on top-level menu button
        if ($(e.item).parent().filter("div").length) return;

        var input = $(e.item).find("input.check");
        var field = $(input).data("field");
        if ($(input).is(":checked")) {
            grid.showColumn(field);
        } else {
            grid.hideColumn(field);
        }
    }
});

(demo)