Can we use ASP.NET Web Server controls in ASP.NET MVC using the Spark View Engine?

Question

I am trying to develop an application using ASP.NET MVC 2 with Spark as View Engine for the Imagine Cup. To win the IE8 award, I must use some features of IE8. I saw that there are some server controls (Web Slice Control, Accelerator Control, Visual Search Control, Browser Helper Control at http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/WebAppToolkitIE8) that help me use the features of IE8. Can I render them using the Spark View Engine?

Answer 1

You can render user controls to a string and then write them to the page. I have a post how to achieve this. It should work with all view engines since you just have to write a string to the page. There is one restriction - controls that require post back will not work as in asp.net web forms.

Answer 2

Why even use server controls? The IE specific functions are simply XML, JavaScript, and/or HTML. You'd probably learn more and have better control over the results by doing it without the controls. I can almost guarantee that Digg, Google, New York Times, and others are not using controls ... and they already have built some ie8-specific features.

Here is some info on each of the ie8 features:

Accelerators in 15 minutes

MSDN info on Slices

MSDN info on Search Providers