Max Number of Web Controls Per Page???

[ChrisFrohlich]

I am in the early stages of an ASP.NET project and my Architect is proposing
a form that would have as many as 1200 (twelve-hundred!) textboxes on a
single page. Aside from the usability concerns, I'm trying to identify other
obstacles to this approach.

One thought I had was that this many web controls may start to seriously tax
..NET vis-a-vis the Viewstate. Essentially that loading this many textboxes
on a form will create tons of overhead as .NET has to maintain values for
each of these controls between postbacks in Viewstate.

I guess I'm looking to find out if there is a hard maximum for the number of
web controls per page/form, OR what rule of thumb I can use to try and gauge
performance expectations under these conditions.

Any information or hints are greatly apprecaited.

Regards,

Chris Frohlich

 

[Phillip Williams]

But if the average user takes 20 seconds to think and make an entry in each
textbox then a 1200-textbox-form can conceptually take up to 6 hrs to
complete.

I would consider the Use Cases more carefully such as to display on each
form only a subset of those entry boxes (based on a set of conditions) and
that a form should not take from an average user to complete more than the
session time out value.

 

[ChrisFrohlich]

Phillip,

Good point, and one I raised to the architect, but as he explained:

--Although the user will have the option to update up to all 1200 tb's, in
almost all cases, they would only need to provide data for ~25-50 in a
session, and the page provides update capability for a data set rather than
performing an insert.

--The additional textboxes are provided/populated for context, as well as to
give the user the option to provide further information if it is readily
available.

--Data being enterred into the form is all financial figures which have been
computed previously, and are essentially being reported such that the bulk of
the user's effort is simple data entry.

As I said, a very valid question, and the form may wind up sub-divided
ultimately, but my primary concern at this point are system/framework
limitations.

Thanks again,

Chris

 

[Phillip Williams]

Hi Chris,

There is no limit on the number of controls to use on one page. In your
situation, you probably need to run a few prototypes to test the performance
of retrieving and displaying your particular data.

For example, if you add a repeater on a form and bind it to datatable that
contains 1200 records of decimal data, you would get a light page that is
only 143 KB in size.

private void Page_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
tbl= new DataTable ();
DataColumn dc = new DataColumn ();
tbl.Columns.Add(new DataColumn ("Field1", typeof(Decimal)));
for (int i=0;i<1200;i++)
{
DataRow dr = tbl.NewRow() ;
dr["Field1"] = (i%50)*50;
tbl.Rows.Add(dr);
}
rptTest.DataSource=tbl;
rptTest.DataBind();

}

 

[Bob Lehmann]

Your "architect" needs to find a new line of work. Perhaps something more
suited to idiots.

So, your users only need to find 25-30 items out of 1200, and that's
acceptable to him? Nice!

Bob Lehmann