How can I work around the fact that I can't put a code block in a skin file?

Question

I have a asp.net page I'm writing and I'm perplexed by this problem. I have 3 DetailViews that I bind with LINQ. The binding works great. Now, I have a Skin file that I want to use to layout the DVs, and it looks like this.

<asp:DetailsView SkinID="blogViews" runat="server" Width="100%" CssClass="post" 
AutoGenerateRows="False" GridLines="None" FooterStyle-CssClass="comments" FooterStyle-Height="50px">
<Fields>
    <asp:BoundField DataField="blog_title" ShowHeader="False" ItemStyle-CssClass="title" ItemStyle-Font-Size="X-Large"/>
    <asp:BoundField DataField="blog_content" HtmlEncode="False" ShowHeader="False" ItemStyle-CssClass="entry" />
</Fields>

Now the problem is, I need to add a templateField to display some data, and I need it between the title and content fields. By using a template field, I need to do an:

Eval("blog_datetime")

and a few others. Unfortunately, the Skin file doesn't allow code blocks. I can't add the template field to the aspx page itself, because it puts the templateField at the bottom of the DetailsView. I guess what I am asking is:

How can I work around the fact that I can't put a code block in a skin file?

Answer 1

I am wondering if you would be better off creating a custom control for laying out these details views?

Skin files are for modifying styles more than behavior and binding.

A custom control would allow you to do all of this and get the benefit of shared layout for the three data views.

Answer 2

great. Thanks for the idea. I will use it.