VS Design Time User Control CSS Duplication

Question

I want to avoid the duplication of stylesheet link tags in the output html when a user control is dropped onto an aspx page. However if you omit the stylesheet link tag you don't get design time support for the stylesheet.

Anybody know a way around this problem?

Answer 1

While that will impact the size of the HTML. I don't see it affecting the overall performance of your webpage. The browser will cache the CSS client side, so it should only be downloaded once.

Answer 2

Add the link tag until you're done using the VS designer, then comment/remove before moving on.

There is no way for it to reference the styles in the designer unless specified. I don't know any other way that this would work, but I've never used the VS designer in a ASP.NET application.

I still think your best and fastest option would be to add the reference, work your control, comment/remove later. It's sloppy and redundant to have extra link/script tags spread all over your page.

Answer 3

I suggest seeing this thread:

How to make user controls know about CSS classes in ASP.NET.

Answer 4

Use a custom designer to load the stylesheet as a resource and apply the style when you render the design time HTML.