I am trying to figure out if it is possible to create ASP.Net web pages dynamically. Here is my scenario: I am dynamically creating a huge amount of controls to track data entry that are split up into sections. These sections will play off one another in the sense that if I say I have 5 sections it will create subsections each with the same number of controls and options but divided into groups. This is for tracking the law so it needs to be diverse, dynamic and it obviously has alot of options as the law does. How might one handle something where you have a ton of controls on a page but you want to easily walk the user through the data entry process without confusing them? Our thoughts at this point are as you create the subsections it creates a dynamic webpage that has the subsection controls within it. Or do we need to look to alternative methods - We also thought about hiding the section information doing a display: none with the CSS for each section as you go through the data entry process hiding the controls you are no longer using. how is this possible using ASP.Net with VB? Thanks!
If i understand you want to use client language to manage your controls. May be it's easier to create controls in post back function using vb with viewstate enabled.
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Lets say you are developing an web app that requires that you are able to Add/Edit items. The item form contains several input control. Would you separate the add/edit pages or use the page for add/edit and control via querystring (i.e. ItemAddEdit.aspx?isEdit=1)
The advantage I see in separating is that it is easier for the (non-technical) user to type the page and to determine whether it is add or edit. Also, when there would be specific changes to each page (if ever), it would be easier to change.
For the single page, well, you reuse code which eliminates some duplicate code and avoid possible problems.
And no, I can't use routing.
This is generally something which could be a subjective thing, because there's as many ways of doing things as there are coders, and a lot of it can be depending on how your system is set up generally.
But, if I were to recommend, I'd say the way you should do it if working with asp.net web-forms is to make two web pages (add/ edit) and then you use a user-control on those to group up the shared logic between the two pages. After all - that's why we have user controls.
In this way you can have both of your situations, by keeping logic in one file/class, but still have two entry points.
This would also mirror more how MVC does it, which could be considered a plus.
That being said - if your administration functionality is behind login etc, there's nothing to hinder for actually doing it in one and separate with the query string approach, and then just load the data if editing or display "empty"/base data when creating.
You shouldn't have the user type the addresses anyway, but click through the links to follow your flow, so the query string should be a minimal issue.
But for the sake of keeping your functionality clean and divided, I'd personally recommend going for two page / usercontrol approach.
Guys i am looking for some awesome tips for developing a page which allows users to search for stuff from the db with the view restricted to only certain columns and the data grouped by and sorted by certain columns..
the source in this case is pretty easy to figure out which is a class which retrieves the search results...kapish..
the view in this case is giving me nightmares as i do not want to write that disgusting piece of code which many asp guys are seemingly used to...overriding row created and data bound of gridview etc etc.... i am thinking of simply rendering a html table itself with the necessary preprocessing applied at the datatable level(group by, sortby etc etc on the in memory object retrieved from the paged results)
i need to know if my thought process so far is right or is there a cleaner way of doing the whole thing in asp.net/asp.net mvc etc etc
Congratulations for not wanting to write "disgusting piece of code"... I spent a few years doing just that and the whole overriding row created / bound / etc. thing is a nightmare.
Your source is a class - great. My preferred method would be to go down the jQuery route, use the jqGrid and write an MVC controller that uses your custom class. Or you could dynamically generate your own HTML table but if you have a lot of data I would save yourself the time and explore jqGrid instead. It doesn't have to be MVC - you could embed it into a standard asp.net website, it's just that the MVC approach makes life easier if you have to expand your application to do more things.
Let's say I'm on a list page and I
page to, say, page 10. Then I select
a record on that page and redirect to detail
page. After that, I click on the edit
to redirect to the edit page.
After I update the record I'm redirected back to
the detail page. I, then, press back
to go back list to continue my browsing from
where I left off. The key here is
where I left off in the list which is
page 10.
What is the best way to handle this?
Initially, I put a hidden field called page number in each of the webforms and pass it along with the querystring back and forth. Seemed like a lot or a bit redundant checking the querystring on each page and passing it.
I was wondering if there are some other ways. for instance, I've been reading about a separation between the UI and the presentation layer is a good idea (for larger scale apps). To me I understand it as all click handler events will yield control over to the presentation layer which is just a plain class?
Is this correct? Also, is the presentation layer suppose to implement something particular? I know this could probably be saved in session but could someone humor me and show me how to use a presentation layer to handle this (I know it would be overkill but is it possible?)
I don't think there is THE best way. Everything depends of what you achieve to do, ie. the requirements of the whole project.
After all, according to the description, I don't even understand why are you having three pages to do a single thing. By the way, ASP.NET data controls handle mostly everything for you, so you don't even have to ask yourself how to do this (except if you have serious reasons to avoid ASP.NET controls).
For example, a simple <asp:ListView /> will let you list items page per page and show details when a single item is selected. Edition of an element is also quite easy.
What you are asking for is well... large and could span multiple blog posts to give a complete understanding of UI Design Patterns.
I have a small example of MVP with Asp.Net here: What is the best way to reuse pages from one website in another?
However, it is not exhaustive. If you really want information on this you should do some looking into a framework such as WebForms MVP, or ASP.Net MVC.
Check out ASP.NET MVC. It is a framework which goes on top of ASP.NET to do the separation between the presentation layer and business layer.
For simplicity, what you are describing is a very good example of the perfect place to use Asp.Net Dynamic Data.
It's incredibly easy and powerful, and easy to modify once you dig into it a bit. I'd start with the videos here: http://www.asp.net/dynamicdata
I've been using this more and more on every project, for at least the simple CRUD portion of it. I really can't express how much I love this tool now that I'm used to it.
I am doing a small human resource web application in my workplace and i have a CV section were employees can add their CVs to be displayed to the human resource manager.
I want to make something similar to what Stackoverflow Careers has done in the Experience and Education sections where the users can click the "add more experience" or "add more education" links for new form elements to appear and a remove, move up and/or move down links appear.
I think that this was possible using jQuery and either the append or appendTo functions. That's as much as I know about jQuery and have no idea on how to go about implementing that.
The solution that i require should:
Enable me to add a template one for
the Experience section and the other
for Education
On the loading of the page at least
one education section and one
Experience section appears on the
form
Form controls must have an
identifying value added to them to
distinct them from other sections.
For instance, when the page first
appears each form control should end
with 0, when the add more button
is clicked, each form control's name
should end with 1, and so on.
Some sort of validaion
I am using ASP.NET WebForms if such information is needed.
Thanks,,
I'm assuming you know how to code C# / .NET.
Make the code which dispays CV.
Then start learning jQuery by going here: http://docs.jquery.com/How_jQuery_Works
Understand jQuery, and things will get less complicated.
We have about 10 applications that basically do the same thing, all written using the Wizard Control for .Net 2.0. The flow they follow is pretty simple:
1. User selects option from a drop downs.
2. Next page has more options more narrowed.
3. User sees confirmation page.
4. Report is generated.
Some of these applications have optional pages, such as allowing the user to upload custom images for the report and allowing the user to select specific lines of data.
I'm attempting to merge these applications, but I'm not sure I'm approaching this the correct way. My first inclination is to create configuration tables in SQL to drive the menus that appear. So, for example, there might be a table with the WizardId, Name, Theme, etc., also a table of steps, and another table to link everything together.
Is there an easier way to approach this that I'm just missing?
We've been thinking through this issue lately and I've come up with two options that both seem valid, just have different uses. One way to do it, similar to what you have described, is to create the following:
A table that holds the wizard information
A table that lists the types of questions to be asked in each wizard
A table to hold the data entered by the user for each question
This is very flexible, but the problem is you have to dynamically generate all the controls you need to collect the information (textbox, drop down, radio, file upload, etc) and store how to display that control in your database.
The other approach that we have tried out on a recent project is to associate a user control with either each wizard or type of wizard step. It isn't as modular, but you have a lot of control over how the controls are arranged and how you collect the data.
I think both approaches are useful in different scenarios. Going with a database driven approach allows you to generate new questions and wizards easily, but lacks the user friendly approach that we wanted for our new application.