Bound Mode

The easiest way to use True DBGrid is in bound mode, in which it communicates directly with an intrinsic or external data source control to retrieve and update data. Visual Basic 6.0 provides a variety of data sources that work with True DBGrid in this fashion:

The built-in Data control, which is included in the standard toolbox. This control uses the Microsoft Jet engine to access data.
The Remote Data Control (RDC), which provides access to data stored in a remote ODBC data source.
The ADO Data Control, which uses ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) to establish connections between bound controls and data providers written to the OLE DB specification.
The Data Environment, which provides a design-time interface for building ADO objects that are created and consumed by bound controls at run time.

You can also use any other data control that adheres to the Microsoft data binding specifications, such as Microsoft's Tabular Data Control (TDC).

To use bound mode, set the DataMode property of the grid to 0 - Bound at design time, then set the DataSource property of the grid to reference an available data source. This can be an intrinsic or external data control on the same Visual Basic form, or a project-wide data source such as the Data Environment. You do not need to fully configure the data source at design time since True DBGrid automatically responds to changes in the data source at run time. Therefore, you can defer specifying a database table or query until the application is running.