Anybody actually building controls?

C

CMM

This NG is rather empty and breezy. It's no wonder....

Man, I thought the ASP.NET team would have addressed the blatant lack of
support for good encapsulation and code re-use in ASP.NET. I honestly don't
think they have A CLUE as to how people build web sites... or good
applications.

1) UserControls would be useful.... but they can't seem to expose anything
but the most basic properties no matter what attributes you decorate the
properties with (i.e. you can't expose a simple no-frills collection). Even
better... why can't you- if you so desire- just expose their inner controls
en-masse and have them be editable via the Property Editor? I dunno... seems
like it would be a useful thing to me.

2) CompositeControls! Boy or boy these are ludicrously unintuitive. I spent
two weeks *trying* to create one. If all you want is a label and a text box,
you're fine.... (and indeed the ASP.NET seems to think this is all you would
want it for).... but if you want to build a composite control comprised of
say a ASP.NET 2.0 Menu and another CompositeControl and expose a collection
(even a simple string collection) you're in for a world of hurt.

Basically I have a "Toolbar" that I'd like to reuse across all my pages
without copying and pasting the ASP markup. It consists of a Menu and a few
other controls (including a nice simple TabStrip control I- successfuly
after a lot of trial and error- wrote as a CompositeControl) all wrapped
around tables (to achieve a certain layout).

I tried "translating" all this into a CompositeControl where I would
generate the thing in CreateChildControls using "Code", (wishing I could
just use a UserControl... it's so much easier to DESIGN) and gave up after
EXTREME frustration. I was able to create the code.... but the model that
handles "Properties" and "Events" and all that good stuff is just WAY
CONVOLUTED and just not WORTH THE TIME AND EFFORT.

I'll just copy and paste.

ASP.NET Team... dudes.... stop with the Marketing driven crapola like
"WebParts" and start doing stuff that people will actually use. Like a nice
TabControl... easily creatable and reusable CustomControls with a *Designer*
that actually works and isn't full of "Gotcha's" like "oh you didn't know?
you have to call RecreatChildControls after you do X.... that blows up a
bunch of stuff (like properties you may have set) but that's your problem
not ours!"

Frustrating.
 
C

CMM

Oh, and I love how CompositeControls don't show up in the Toolbox....
Actually, they do... but there's all sorts of "everything must be perfect-
even though you don't get compile errors" and make sure you *restart* Visual
Studio (what is this 1993?) and Venus, Earth, and Mars must be aligned.
 

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