Asp.net Ajax - How To Register History Entries (Back/Forward) When Working With Multiview (On Active Index Changed)

Question

Hello everyone,

I'm using an update panel to have part of my page updating asynchronously and it's navigation needs to be registered when a Multiview changes its activeindex.

For sample, when the page first loads, the Multiview Active Index = 0. When user clicks on a link, I show the content of the View index 1.

It is really important allowing the user go back/forward using the browser history.

The scriptmanager is located in a masterpage and has its "EnableHistory" property set to "True".

Has someone implemented it when working with Multiview?

Thank you,

Josimari Martarelli

Answer 1

I think this should work, but you'll need to customize it a bit. I'm doing something very similar, but I had to move away from using the multview within updatepanel due to a problem with a third-party control I had embedded within it.

You'll need to add a reference to your Master page in your aspx file using the asp.net tag below. And also, expose the scriptmanager as a public control in your master page so you can wire an event to it.

In your page's design/html code: Update the virtual path to your Master or use the Type to assign the type reference.

<%@ MasterType VirtualPath="~/MasterPage.master" %>

In your page's init event:

   public void Page_Init(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {   // can be done at MasterPage level if you like
        this.Master.ScriptManager.EnableHistory = true;
    }

Then in your page's load event:

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {              
        this.Master.ScriptManager.Navigate += 
         new EventHandler<HistoryEventArgs>(ScriptManager_Navigate);

        if (!this.IsPostBack && 
              !ScriptManager.GetCurrent(this).IsInAsyncPostBack)
        {
           // load default multiview index
        }           
    }

Then add this new event handler to your page. This names the item "myArgs", you should use something a bit more intuitive for your content. In my implementation, I have a series of items (like sort order, page index, etc. separated by delims and then break them up and assign them).

 protected void ScriptManager_Navigate(object sender, HistoryEventArgs e)
    {
        if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(e.State["myArgs"]))
        {
            string args = e.State["myArgs"];
            SetMyArgs(args);                           
        }
        else
        {
            // just load default
        }
    }

The args will be the multiview index. These are just helper functions that I use. If index is the only item you care about, then you can just inline these calls to the main methods.

 private void SetMyArgs(string args)
    {
       int myIndex = int.Parse(args);
      // set multiview index here?
    }

    private string GetMyArgs()
    {       
        return myMultiview.ActiveIndex.ToString();
    }

Then when you trigger the event that changes the active index, add this to those methods

  if (this.IsAsync)
    {
        this.Master.ScriptManager.AddHistoryPoint("myArgs", GetMyArgs());
    }

Hopefully, this gives you some help.

Answer 2

Thank you, it works perfectly...