Fitting lots of fields on one web page

[Guest]

I'm new to asp.net.

I have an ASP.Net form that contains literally 50 fields for the user to
enter for a contacts details.

All these fields are stored in the one table.
So I have a class that I load the values into and out of.
All that is fine.

The issue is that the form is very long vertically by the time I've added
calendar controls and field validators etc.
So the user has to do a lot of scrolling to work their way through a form.

What's the best way to handle lots of fields on the form please?
Should I use tabs or something like that?
Does tabs or such mean having multiple pages?
How could I keep the details in the Contacts class across multiple pages?

As you can see, I'm just not sure how to approach the issue.
Any help would be appreciated.

 

[John Timney \(ASP.NET MVP\)]

Use Tab Controls, or use simple divs, and hide and show them as the user
moves through the form using javascript. Technically, thats all a tab
control would do anyway behind the scenes.

--
Regards

John Timney
ASP.NET MVP
Microsoft Regional Director

 

[Guest]

John

Thanks for taking the time to respond. I really appreciate it.
But I'm so unsure with asp.net that I don't understand what you meant.

1. I assume that by saying to use tab controls and hide and show ... that
you mean:
* All the 50 fields plus associated validation controls etcetera are on the
one form
* That I hide and show them as necessary
* That I have to move their location on the web form programatically when a
tab is clicked
(Since otherwise I'd have to overlay them on top of each other in design
view if I wanted them neatly displayed when the form is run)

2. Or is it a case of clicking on a tab leads to a separate page?
In which case I'm back to my issue of how I keep the class with it's 50
fields available to multiple pages. I assume I wouldn't/couldn't use a
session variable for something so large.

3. I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you mean by 'simple divs'

Thanks again

Geoff

 

[John Timney \(ASP.NET MVP\)]

use your tabs to group the fields under connected sets, like surrounding
sections within a box on a form in traditional programming, and show them as
the user selects a new tab. Its not the loading of the 50 fields thats
essentially problematic, its more likely the user interaction problems of
reading that many fields on screen at once may be..........or if it is
problematic, use the tabs to load different forms like walking through a
wizard of sorts.

--
Regards

John Timney
ASP.NET MVP
Microsoft Regional Director