ASP.NET Are there good ways to design Wizards?

Question

I know there is a Wizard control available but what I want is so simplistic I cannot figure out where I started veering off the deep end here. When a user puts in their name and hits next I want the calendar control to become selecatable for a start date. I have the ability to mark the start date as green. I want them to select away until they hit the continue button. Issue 1 is they can hit next without a date. I want to catch that. Issue two is they can reselect many times before hitting next. I want them to be able to do that. Once they hit next I want them to be able to chose and end date over and over until they hit next. Then I want them to confirm their coices. I guess the logic isn't so simple ... The code I wrote is so bad. :(. Even the proper fixes hurt my head because StartDateStartPart and EndDateStartPart just would become mental gibberish. I am obviously going to have to rethink and redo this from the ground up.

<script runat="server" enableviewstate="True">

DateTime begin;
DateTime end;
int iSelectedStart = 0;
int iSelectedEnd = 0;
int iPutName = 0;

protected void Button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
  if (iPutName == 0)
  {
    Label1.Text = TextBox1.Text + " you will be slecting your start and end dates.";
    LabelInstructions1.Text = "Please select a begin date and hit next";
    Calendar1.SelectionMode = System.Web.UI.WebControls.CalendarSelectionMode.Day;
    iPutName = 1;
    ViewState["iPutName"] = 1;
    ViewState["Label1_Text"] = Label1.Text;
    ViewState["LabelInstructions1_Text"] = LabelInstructions1.Text;
    ViewState["Calendar1_SelectionMode"] = Calendar1.SelectionMode;
  }
  else
  {
    if (iSelectedStart <= 0)
    {
      LabelInstructions1.Text = "You have not selected a start date please do so.";
    }
    else if (iSelectedStart < 99)
    {
      iSelectedStart = 99;
      Label1.Text = TextBox1.Text + " you will be slecting your start and end dates.";
      LabelInstructions1.Text = "Please select an end date and hit confirm";
      ViewState["begin"] = begin;
      ViewState["iSelectedStart"] = iSelectedStart;
    }
    else
    {
      if (iSelectedEnd = 0)
      {
        LabelInstructions1.Text = "You have not selected a start date please do so.";
      }
    }

  }
}


protected void Calendar1_SelectionChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
  if (iSelectedStart < 99)
  {
    iSelectedStart++;
    begin = Calendar1.SelectedDate;
    ViewState["iSelectedStart"] = iSelectedStart;
    ViewState["begin"] = begin;
  }
  else
  {
    if (begin == Calendar1.SelectedDate)
    {
      LabelInstructions1.Text = "Error you cannot select the same start and end date";
      LabelInstructions1.ForeColor = System.Drawing.Color.Red;
    }
    else
    {
      end = Calendar1.SelectedDate;
      iSelectedEnd = 0;
      ViewState["end"] = end;
    }
  }
}

protected void Calendar1_DayRender(object sender, DayRenderEventArgs e)
{
  if (e.Day.Date == begin)
  {
    e.Cell.BackColor = System.Drawing.Color.Green;
  }
  if (e.Day.Date == end)
  {
    e.Cell.BackColor = System.Drawing.Color.Red;
  }
}

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
  if (ViewState["iPutName"] != null)
    iPutName = (int)ViewState["iPutName"];

  if (ViewState["Label1_Text"] != null) 
   Label1.Text = ViewState["Label1_Text"].ToString();

  if (ViewState["LabelInstructions1_Text"] != null)
    LabelInstructions1.Text = ViewState["LabelInstructions1_Text"].ToString();

  if (ViewState["Calendar1_SelectionMode"] != null)
    Calendar1.SelectionMode = (CalendarSelectionMode) ViewState["Calendar1_SelectionMode"];

  if (ViewState["begin"] != null)
    begin = (DateTime)ViewState["begin"];

  if (ViewState["end"] != null)
    end = (DateTime)ViewState["end"];
}

Answer 1

Looks like you may have to use javascript/ajax to build an intuitive UI for the wizard. I would recommend Jquery as its easy to learn and manipulate DOM elements.

Answer 2

After much thought I think I need to make a finite state machine with a diagram showing all the possible state transitions. In addition the selection of good varible names and not writing as learning is probably necessary.

Answer 3

If you don't want to mess with AJAX, the more traditional way to do this sort of thing with web forms is to use a panel control for each page/form of the wizard, and then hide or reveal the various panels on postback. It's not as fun or cool as the AJAX approach, but if it's really just a simple little wizard then this is a quick and easy way to do that.

The web form might look something like this:

<%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="Default.aspx.cs" Inherits="PanelWizard._Default" %>

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"&gt;

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" >
<head runat="server">
    <title>Untitled Page</title>
</head>
<body>
    <form id="form1" runat="server">
    <div>
        <asp:Panel ID="wizForm1" runat="server" Height="50px" Width="125px">
            <asp:TextBox ID="txtName" runat="server" OnTextChanged="TextBox1_TextChanged"></asp:TextBox></asp:Panel>

    </div>
        <asp:Panel ID="wizForm2" runat="server" Height="50px" Width="125px" Visible="False">
            <asp:Calendar ID="calStart" runat="server"></asp:Calendar>
        </asp:Panel>
        <asp:Button ID="btnContinue" runat="server" OnClick="btnContinue_Click" Text="Continue" />
    </form>
</body>
</html>

The page viewstate will manage the value of your controls, which you can then access in the code-behind to implement your business logic as you hide and reveal the panels. For example:

namespace PanelWizard
{
    public partial class _Default : System.Web.UI.Page
    {
        protected void btnContinue_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            // validate controls according to business logic
            //...

            // Hide and reveal panels based on the currently visible panel.
            if (wizForm1.Visible)
            {
                wizForm1.Visible = false;
                wizForm2.Visible = true;
            }
            else if (wizForm2.Visible)
            {
                // and so on...
            }
        }
    }
}