Beginning ASP.NET 3.5 in C# 2008: From Novice to Professional, Second Edition

17.7. The DetailsView and FormView

The GridView excels at showing a dense table with multiple rows of information. However, sometimes you want to provide a detailed look at a single record. You could work out a solution using a template column in a GridView, but ASP.NET includes two controls that are tailored for this purpose: the DetailsView and the FormView. Both show a single record at a time but can include optional pager buttons that let you step through a series of records (showing one per page). Both give you an easy way to insert a new record, which the GridView doesn't allow. And both support templates, but the FormView requires them. This is the key distinction between the two controls.

One other difference is the fact that the DetailsView ...