Programatic Access to DragHandleTemplate in ASP.NET AJAX ReorderList

Question

Is there a way to programatically access the DragHandleTemplate of a ReorderList (ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit) ... Specifically during ItemDataBound for the ReorderList, in order to change its appearance at the per item level?

Answer 1

You can not access DragHandleTemplate programatically on the server, but if you create the surrounding elements with unique ID's (per row) you should be able the use CSS-selectors or Javascript to only change some of the items.

Answer 2

Unfortunately there is no way of getting drag holder from ReorderListItem. Instead, you can create a server control inside DragHandleTemplate (e.g. PlaceHolder) and then find it in your ItemDataBound event handler:

In aspx file:

<DragHandleTemplate>
  <div class="dragHandle">
    <asp:Label ID="lblDragHandle" runat="server" />
  </div>
</DragHandleTemplate>

In aspx.cs file:

protected void ReorderList1_ItemDataBound(object sender, AjaxControlToolkit.ReorderListItemEventArgs e)
{
   Label lblDragHandle = (Label)FindControlRecursive(e.Item, "lblDragHandle");
   lblDragHandle.Text = e.Item.ItemIndex.ToString();
}

private Control FindControlRecursive(Control root, string id)
{
   if (root.ID == id)
   {
      return root;
   }

   foreach (Control c in root.Controls)
   {
      Control t = FindControlRecursive(c, id);
      if (t != null)
      {
         return t;
      }
   }

   return null;
}

I copied FindControlRecursive method from Jeff's blog.