How to register a VB.Net User Control with jQuery

Question

Greetings and thank you in advance for the help. I created a user control in VB.NET that uses a jQuery datepicker. I am at an impasse. The code I have works for one datepicker control on the page but because I can only register the client script once, it will not work for multiple instances/datepickers on the same page. What is the best way to go about initiating the jQuery script for this control so I can use it multiple times on one page? Can I append to ClientScript.RegisterStartupScript? Thanks again.

Dim sJS As String = "$(function() { " & vbCrLf
sJS += " var dates = $('#" & txtDate1.UniqueID
sJS += "').datepicker({" & vbCrLf
sJS += " changeMonth: '" & _bMonthDropDown & "', changeYear: '" & _bMonthDropDown
sJS += "', numberOfMonths: '" & _numberOfMonths
...
sJS += "'}); });" & vbCrLf
Page.ClientScript.RegisterStartupScript(GetType(Page), "DatePicker", sJS, True)

Answer 1

Hey,

If you are using MS AJAX, you can always add this to the user control, which will ensure only one entry gets registered:

<asp:ScriptManagerProxy id="asm" runat="server">
   <Scripts>
      <asp:ScriptReference Path="~/jquery.datepicker.min.js" />
   </Scripts>
</asp:ScriptManagerProxy>

And duplicates are ignored. Or, you can have the user control let the page do the registration. Lastly, you could add a property to the user control that says registerdatepicker, which when true, the user control uses the page.clientscript object to register the script.

Answer 2

You can make just a minor change to get the behavior you want. Just change this:

Page.ClientScript.RegisterStartupScript(GetType(Page), "DatePickerVars", sJS, True)

To have something unique for a key, like this:

Page.ClientScript.RegisterStartupScript(GetType(Page), "DatePickerVars" + txtDate1.UniqueID, sJS, True)

That key (combined with the type) is what determines if this script is already registered, which you'd want for example if you had 30 of a user control and only wanted to run a certain script once. In this case though, you want each user control to register the script that's unique to it, so give it a key that won't be found as already being registered for this page.