User control development using VS 2003

[Lloyd Sheen]

Is there any one who has actually done this. I have now scanned more web
articles about this with the realization that not one of them (including
MSDN docs) outlines how to do this. This is beyond frustration. It seems
that with every new VS release the documentation falls further behind.

What I want to do should be simple but I can find no way to do it with VS
with any visual designer support. I thought the 'V' in VS stood for Visual.

Can anyone point me to a resource please???

 

[Ruslan Shlain]

Whould be nice to know what the problem is.

 

[Chris Jackson]

What is it that you are trying to do? User controls (ascx controls) have
designer support. If you are attempting to make a custom control (sometimes
called a server control) then you don't get designer support, because it's
all about handling events and spitting out HTML (or any plain text, really)
when it is told to render. If you can give details, we can try and point you
in the right direction. I have done both extensively.

 

[Lloyd Sheen]

Please read my previous posts (don't want to clog group with repeats).
Should show just prior to this post.

Thanks

 

[Lloyd Sheen]

Please check my prior posts (don't want to clog newgroup with dups)

Thanks Lloyd Sheen

 

[Hermit Dave]

Try this

http://asp.net/Tutorials/quickstart.aspx

Its got a few things on controls. my user control if you mean .ascx objects.
Well they are just the normal aspx files which are stripped of all the extra
tags
all you have to do is rename the aspx file into ascx and then change
Codebehind="ModuleTitle.ascx.cs"
to point it to ascx instead of earlier aspx...
and you user control is up and running.

Unfortunately when you load it it acts like a server side include and its
not parse so all you see is a greyish object with UserControl-id of control
when added to an asp.net page (aspx)

Hope this helped...

Hermit Dave

 

[Lloyd Sheen]

What I am trying to do is use code that works on one page in other pages.
It is a set of controls that access information from a SQL Server and
populate a list depending on certain criteria.

I need to have the same functionallity on several pages. This is what I
would think is the best cause for the use of user controls.

I am new to ASP.NET and have taken the idea of a user control from previous
VS types (VB6). I would think you could create a user control for ASP by
creating the child controls, add code to put functionallity to those
controls (server side) and then be able to add that control to ASP pages.
This does not seem to be a viable thing to do in VS 2003.

 

[Lloyd Sheen]

This does nothing for me. I need to be able to access other controls on the
page. Be able to position the control. Actually what I want to know is if
I can from scratch create a new user control . Add child controls to this.
Add code to this. Add properties to this. Use the resultant control.

Sorry if I seem bitchy but I am now on the 42nd page of the google search
and still no resolution.

Having VS 2003 at the present is as usefull as notepad. And notepad takes
less memory.

 

[Hermit Dave]

Well my friend what you are talking bout is a custom web control.
You have two options.
1. Creating everything yourself (Even emitting the correct html code.)
2. User a composite control which is exactly what it means. You consume
other controls and delegate the task. But you have to ensure that you call
EnsureChildControls has been called

Yes you can define your own properties and you can set one of the properties
to style. Which will give you the position of control
If you need style settings for child controls too... then try something like
datagrid... you have PagerStyle and ItemStyle.

I think i have seen a book from wrox press on custom web controls. Should
sort you out.... To start up just look at the link i gave you earlier. or
try this one...

http://www.dotnetjunkies.com/quickstart/aspplus/doc/webctrlauthoring.aspx

for creating custom web controls.... You can look on asp.net books as
well... they generally do have a chapter on creating controls.. and atleast
an example of each...

Hermit Dave

 

[Lloyd Sheen]

So then the answer is no. You cannot use VS 2003 to do this other than as
an expensive notepad??

 

[Hermit Dave]

Well if you can read and understand then... yes you can but you have to work
for it....
You can't just drag and drop and expect everything to work.... try using a
..net control similar to activex control for that

Hermit Dave

 

[Chris Jackson]

What you want to do seems fairly straightforward. You just need to create a
user control, which you can use the visual designer to do. Then, you need to
go in to the code behind and customize based on your needs. Let me see if I
can expand your scenario in a way that is meaningful. You want to get
information from SQL Server, and what you intend to display is dependent on
what page you are sitting on. Well, then your develop a user control that
displays a generic DataGrid that you can later databind to some (still to be
defined) data source. Then, you can access the hosting page using the Parent
property of that control, if the information is there. Or, you could store
that information in a session variable. There are countless ways to
develop - you have a completely object oriented environment in which to
play, and you just need to design your architecture so you can phrase your
"question" to this user control in a completely generic way. In fact, I have
several sites that contain only a single aspx control, and the entire
application logic determines what user controls should be loaded, and what
data they could contain. The framework is extremely powerful. If you can
phrase your question more specifically, then perhaps we can give you tips
and tricks to get you to the answer in the most efficient way - just wanting
to reuse code is a question that the UserControl class answers rather
succinctly.