If you place a HyperLinkField in a GridView in an ASP.NET page and link it to a JavaScript function, you'll find that it doesn't work properly. The problem is that the URL specified by the HyperLinkField's NavigateUrl fails to render when you use a JavaScript reference (such as "Javascript:func();") rather than a standard URL.

One possible workaround is to create an item template column containing a hyperlink.

As a workaround, however, you can use the RowDataBoundEvent to prepare a proper call to the JavaScript function. To make this work, developers need to type "Javascript." (with a period) instead of "Javascript:" (with a colon) in the designer.

Here's an example:

void grid_RowDataBound(object sender, GridViewRowEventArgs e)
{
//if it is not DataRow return.
if (e.Row.RowType != DataControlRowType.DataRow)
{
return;
}
//Loop thru the cells changing the "." to ":" in hyperlink navigate URLs
for (int i = 0; i < e.Row.Cells.Count; i++)
{
TableCell td = e.Row.Cells[i];
if (td.Controls.Count > 0 && td.Controls[0] is HyperLink)
{
HyperLink hyperLink = td.Controls[0] as HyperLink;
string navigateUrl = hyperLink.NavigateUrl.ToLower();
hyperLink.NavigateUrl = hyperLink.NavigateUrl.Replace(
hyperLink.NavigateUrl.Substring(
navigateUrl.IndexOf("javascript."), "javascript.".Length),
"javascript:");
}
}
}