Remote update cell content in kendo grid - kendo-ui

Question

Here I have a code to update a cell contet when pressing a button.
It works fine, but it doesn't set the flag, that indicates, that the cell has been changed.
It should look like this with the litle red triangle:
The code:
<a id="button" href="#">Click me</a>
<div id="grid"></div>
<script>
var dataSource, grid;
$(document).ready(function () {
dataSource = new kendo.data.DataSource({
data: [
{ category: "Beverages", name: "Chai", price: 18},
{ category: "Seafood", name: "Konbu", price: 6}
],
})
grid = $("#grid").kendoGrid({
dataSource: dataSource,
editable: true,
}).data("kendoGrid");
$('#button').click(function (e) {
var data = grid.dataItem("tr:eq(1)");
data.set('category', 'Merchandice');
});
});
</script>
Update:
Here is the update based on #tstancin: Kendo example.
Thank you for the answer - I had thought of it to.
I am wondering if it's possible to do the update in a more clean way with some binding through som MVVM perhaps?
Kind regards from Kenneth

Answer 1

If that's all you want then you should expand your button click code with the following:
$('#button').click(function (e) {
var data = grid.dataItem("tr:eq(1)");
data.set('category', 'Merchandice');
$("#grid tr:eq(1) td:eq(1)").addClass("k-dirty-cell");
$("#grid tr:eq(1) td:eq(0)").prepend("<span class='k-dirty'></span>");
});
But if you, for instance, manually change the value of name column from Chai to something else, and then click the click me button, the dirty marker in the name column will disappear.
You should use flags for every cell and set them before data.set(). Then, in the grid's dataBound event you should inspect every cell's value and assign the dirty marker if it's needed. For manual changes you should handle the save event and set flags there.

Answer 2

I wrote a script that makes it posible to use a call like this:
SetCellData(id, columnName, value);
So with an id, a columnName and a value, I can update a value in a grid and the flag will be set on the cell.
function SetCellData(id, columnName, value) {
var dataItem = grid.dataSource.get(id);
dataItem.set(columnName, value);
var columnIndex = GetColumnIndex(columnName);
if (columnIndex > -1) {
var cell = $('tr[data-uid*="' + dataItem.uid + '"] td:eq(' + columnIndex + ')')
if (!cell.hasClass("k-dirty-cell")){
cell.prepend("<span class='k-dirty'></span>");
cell.addClass("k-dirty-cell");
}
}
}
function GetColumnIndex(columnName) {
var columns = grid.columns;
for (var i = 0; i < columns.length; i++)
if (columns[i].field == columnName)
return i;
return -1;
};
I have the code here : example