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I'm an expert web developer knowing all famous web frameworks.

I want to build a collection of Server Controls like ComponentArt components that you can use in your projects.

In ComponentArt: You can easily register the namespace of componentart in your project and bind data to those controls without any additional code or effort (like copying any additional files to our sample projects) and ofcourse they support ajax.

To accomplish this I came to realize that I have to develop some advanced UserControls that support callbacks for handling ajax and there are not much of a information about sharing UserControls amongst different projects. Actually here is the only useful link: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/user-controls/EmbeddedUserControl.aspx

On the other hand Server Controls don't have ascx template interfaces that I can comfortably design my control layouts.

I need a way to develop some web components that you can:

  1. Share amongst other projects easily (Just add dll to project and start using it)
  2. Support CallBack For ajax(for example ICallbackEventHandler)

  3. Can have a Template for HTML Design (like UserControl that have ascx template file) so you don't have to hardcode HTML in your code like:

    output.Write("<table>content</table>");

Custom Server Controls have the first two, but they don't have ascx files so you have to write all of your html code inside your cs file

Please advise...

EBAG
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3 Answers3

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Instead of hard coding your HTML you could have your Server Controls read it from a file, whose name and path you determine based on a configuration setting or the directory path. That would allow your Server Controls to be more dynamic and not have a need for recompiling upon changing the HTML. That would help fulfill condition #3 at a slight cost to #1 (since your Server Control now relies on an outside resource it's not as easily distributable). You could always hard code the default markup and fall back to it if the file is not found as an extra precaution against exceptions.

NoAlias
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  • I though you can only load controls with LoadControl function that it's parameter is a virtual directory with indicates only project local directory and nothing else, now can you read the template with Server Control? do you have a sample code? – EBAG Dec 10 '10 at 23:10
  • LoadControl is for UserControls. What I'm saying is that instead of having output.write(""); you can have output.write(strVariableOfHtmlReadFromTextFile); where the File path was determined from a call to the ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings. – NoAlias Dec 11 '10 at 05:55
  • I guess that's it :D now I see why people hate asp.net so much. – EBAG Dec 11 '10 at 11:36
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Requirements 1 and 3 are mutually exclusive. The markup has to come from somewhere--either a compiled resource or an external file. Your external file could be optional, but then you have to have default markup specified in the compiled resource. The compiled resource doesn't necessarily have to be your .cs file. You could put it in a resource file, but I'm not sure that's going to be any easier to work with. You could also build your control as a composite of existing server controls, but that's going to make your templating much more difficult.

joelt
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1

You need to start educating yourself with books like:

alt text

Using this book, and a lot of time, I created a multi column TreeView. Can be seen HERE.

JBrooks
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