Templated Asp.NET User Control

Question

I'm trying to create a user control that allows users to make something like the following:

  <uc1:MyControl id="controlThing" runat="server">

    <uc1:BoundColumn id="column1" Column="Name" runat="server" />
    <uc1:CheckBoxBoundColumn id="column2" Column="Selector" runat="server" />
    <uc1:BoundColumn id="column3" Column="Description" runat="server" />

     ...etc 

  </uc1:MyControl>

There are only certain controls I would allow, in addition to the fact that you can have many of any type. I can picture this in XSD but I'm not entirely sure for Asp.NET.

My Asp.NET voodoo is drawing a blank right now.. any thoughts?

Answer 1

Is it possible for you to override an existing control such as a ListView or GridView? That's your simplest option.

But to create your own custom templated control you need to use ITemplate.

I haven't done one but a quick google returned this: http://www.developerfusion.com/article/4410/in-depth-aspnet-using-adonet/2/ it looked good.

I have a book "Developing Microsoft ASP.NET Server Controls and Components" which covers it but I haven't read through it indepth yet (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0735615829/nikhilkothari-20)

Answer 2

I suppose the most difficult part I'm concerned with is being able to template any number of a given set of user controls inside my user control.

<mycontrol id="control1" runat="server">
    <templateitem id="bleh1" runat="server" />
    <templateitem id="bleh2" runat="server" />
    <templateitem id="bleh3" runat="server" />
     ..etc
</mycontrol>

Answer 3

The PersistenceMode.InnerProperty is what you want.. Here are the MSDN docs. Doing something like this will get you what you want:

[PersistenceMode(PersistenceMode.InnerProperty)]
public ListItem Items {
   get; set;
}

and then you'll be able to use it like this:

<cc1:MyControl runat="server">
   <Items>
       <asp:ListItem Text="foo" />
   </Items>
</cc1:MyControl>

You can create your own custom classes to use in there as well.