Switching a Repeater's ItemTemplate at runtime

Question

Is it possible to define multiple templates for a Repeater's ItemTemplate and switch between them according to some condition?

I use a repeater to view a list of posts but want to have a different view for rows that belong to the current user (e.g. contains a LinkButton for deleting the post)

If this is not possible, then is it possible to use a Multiview control inside a Repeater's ItemTemplate?

Answer 1

I don't know if it's possible to switch between templates, but I've found the the Repeater.OnItemDataBound event most useful for modifying the display of individual repeater items.

For example, to show a link button based on the current user...

protected void repeater_ItemDataBound(object sender, RepeaterItemEventArgs e)
{
   LinkButton = e.Item.FindControl("btnDelete");
   LinkButton.Visible = (e.Item.DataItem as DataRow)["CreatedBy"] == getCurrentUser();
}

Generally I keep the layout of the data consistent for each repeater item and modify the visual appearance by altering the CssStyle and Visible properties of controls in the template. If there are more radical layout changes, I'll put each layout option inside a placeholder and use logic to determine which placeholder to show.

Answer 2

I tried to use a MultiView control inside the ItemTemplate and it worked very well, hope this helps someone with the same problem:

<asp:Repeater ID="Repeater1" runat="server" OnItemCommand="Repeater1_ItemCommand">
  <ItemTemplate>
    <asp:MultiView ID="MultiView1" runat="server" ActiveViewIndex="<%# ((Post)Container.DataItem).Member.ID == CurrentMemberID ? 1 : 0 %>">
      <asp:View ID="View1" runat="server"><!-- some links --></asp:View>
      <asp:View ID="View2" runat="server"><asp:LinkButton CommandName="DeletePost" CommandArgument="<%# ((Post)Container.DataItem).Id %>" ID="LinkButton1" runat="server">Delete Post</asp:LinkButton></asp:View>
    </asp:MultiView>
  </ItemTemplate>
</asp:Repeater>