Setting styles through code on html elements. Is there better way?

Question

I came across some code like this:

public string IsAdmin()
{
    string style = "";

    if(EditUserName == "")
    {
        style = "visibility:hidden;display:none";
    }
    return style;
}

Then in the html, I see something like this:

 <table style='<%= IsAdmin() %>'>
 </table>

The above doesn't seem the best way to do this. Is there a more efficient and alternative way to set the style of html elements programmatically.

Answer 1

I'll start it off by saying that it's generally a bad practice to set inline styles on elements -- especially on server-side code.

Style should generally be set through external style sheets.

When manipulating the DOM on the client-side, there are a number of acceptable ways of setting an element's style. Generally, it's efficient for coders to use a library like jQuery.

Answer 2

If you use this arrangement:

<table runat="server" ID="tableElement">
</table>

then, you can do something like this:

HtmlTable table = (tableElement as HtmlTable);
table.Style.Add(HtmlTextWriterStyle.Display, "none");
table.Style.Add(HtmlTextWriterStyle.Visibility, "hidden");

Edit

In light of the other suggestions, you would instead use this technique like this:

table.Style.Add("class", "whatever");

Answer 3

To me it looks like what you really want is visibility based on permissions not really styles, why not do this:

Markup:

<table runat="server" visible='<%= IsVisible() %>'>
</table>

Code-behind:

protected bool IsVisible()
{
    bool result= true;

    if(EditUserName == string.empty)
    {
        result= false;
    }
    return result;
}