Keep the current Jquery accordion pane open after asp.net postback?

Question

I have a jquery accordion on an asp.net aspx weppage. Inside the panes, I have asp.net buttons. When I click on the button, the pane I was in, closes and reloads the page, defaulting to the first pane. I don't mind the reload, but is there a way to keep the current pane open after the reload. Right now, I am just calling accordion() on a div with the id of accordion.

Answer 1

Use the option "active" when you create the accordion. Something like this:

$('.selector').accordion({ active: 2 });

This will activate the second option in the accordion. You can also pass a selector to select by id.

Answer 2

write index or id of accordion pane in which the button was pressed using ClientScript.RegisterStartupScript. Suppose user clicks button named btnSubmit which is in pane 3. Then it will work like this:

protected void btnSubmitClick(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    //process button click

    //class this function at end:
    SetAccordionPane(3);
}

//you can call this function every time you need to set specific pane to open
//positon
private void SetAccordionPane(int idx)
{
    var s="<script type=\"text/javascript\">var paneIndex = "
      + idx +"</script">; 
    ClientScript.RegisterStartupScript(typeof(<YourPageClass>, s);
}

now in javascript:

$(function(){

    if(paneIndex)
    {
        $('.selector').accordion({active: paneIndex});
    }
    else
    {
        $('.selector').accordion();
    }
});

Answer 3

You could use a hidden input field to persist the active accordion index during postbacks, and then populate it using javascript during the change event of the accordion.

<asp:HiddenField ID="hidAccordionIndex" runat="server" Value="0" />

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
    $(function(){
        var activeIndex = parseInt($('#<%=hidAccordionIndex.ClientID %>').val());

        $("#accordion").accordion({
            autoHeight:false,
            event:"mousedown",
            active:activeIndex,
            change:function(event, ui)
            {
                var index = $(this).children('h3').index(ui.newHeader);
                $('#<%=hidAccordionIndex.ClientID %>').val(index);
            }
        });
    });
</script>

You could probably come up with a more efficient way of capturing the active index during the change event, but this seems to work.

When the page has loaded it retrieves the active index from the hidden field and stores it in a variable. It then initialises the accordion using the retrieved index and a custom function to fire on the change event which writes a new index to the hidden field whenever a new pane is activated.

During a postback, the hidden field value is persisted in the ViewState so that when the page is loaded again the accordion is initialised with the index of the last pane clicked on.