Update data in a WebForm - asp.net

I'm new in developing ASP.NET WebForms application. I have an application that works on WinForms.
My main WinForm contains a control that after establishing a connection to a remote server, it receives values to visualise in the property Text of some labels in the Form. This control works in the same way in Running Mode and in Design mode as well (I'm using VS2010).
I need to have the same control that works in WebForms. I re-writed the control for working in WebForms. I obtained the same behaviour that I had in WinForms but I'm not able to update/refresh the labels with new data on display. Where am I doing wrong? Why can't I see the changes on the display in both cases?
Any help will be welcome, thank you in advance.

im not clear, which control you bind with, for example if you bind it with gridview you need to call DataBind() method after add/edit, or redirect page to load with fresh data

Related

Conversion from Coldfusion to Asp.net (Drag and Drop Functionality)

I have Coldfusion web application that has a CF query from a database table. This data is displayed in an HTML table with a checkbox beside each data item and an associated picture. There is Jquery functionality on the page so that the items can be re-arranged in the table based on the users preference. After the user finishes with their re-arrangement, it is re-displayed without the checkboxes for sending as an email. Note I did not write this application myself but inherited it...
I need to transfer this functionality to a asp.net C# web application but i am at a crossroads on how to proceed. I've looked at telerik controls and others but none appear to fit the functionality i need. Any solid suggestions?
I'd suggest to handle rendering of the table yourself. If you're using asp.net webforms, this can be done with a custom server control. If you're using asp.net mvc (which I suggest as MVC matches the coldfusion development model a bit closer than webforms), then it's much simpler and you can just do so in the view.
Once you are rendering the grid yourself, then it's simple to apply the jquery functionality on the client-side.
Without more info about what you can or can't do, it's a bit difficult to offer any more guidance. But you did only ask for suggestions :-)
Asp.net doesn't mean you need to use a library control built for .net. jQuery is powerful enough today, and it's not tied to any back end technology.
So, that being said, I would still go with jQuery and back it up with RESTful request using webservices with WebForms or controllers with MVC.
Have a look at this: JQuery Drag and Drop features with ASP.NET

updating data in a grid or something like that when someone inputs new data !(WITHOUT ANY POSTBACKS)

imagine that i have a web page in my application for inputing data and there is a grid at the bottom of them (showing inputing data)...
i want to force this web page acts like a windows application (mean i do not want any postback after enter and that grid should be updated after inputing data without postback)...
imagine that i opened this page in my pc and my friend has opened this page too / i want when i input data in ajax mode , that grid updated for my friend without any postback / like windows application ...
is timer a good idea for doing this ?
or is there a better way for doing that?
thanks in advance
best regards
You're definitely going to have to go AJAX for this - the simplest (but definitely not the most efficient) method would be to add the AJAX Control Toolkit to your project, wrap your GridView in an UpdatePanel, and have a timer on the page to check the database to see if there's anything newer than last time you checked. If there has been a change, you can either re-databind the grid or just render that new content manually (and update the UpdatePanel).

ASP.NET (webforms): Using with MINIMAL server controls and substituting with JQUERY?

I am currently working with ASP.NET and the person who designed the form has used all Server Controls for things like TextBoxes and Dropdowns etc when really they are not providing postbacks.. Some of the dropdowns and textboxes are values that I need only in jQuery so as far as I can see there are no drawbacks to coverting these controls to standard html controls rather than ASP.NET server controls?
I suppose I will need to continue to have my GetDataGrid button as a server control because I will need it to postback (and receive PageLoad events etc - all asp.net events) to update the GridView? Or would it be possible to use the GridView (ASP.NET server control) from a Webmethod and call it via Jquery?
Of course in my webmethod I would need to the instance of the gridview to add the datasource - but I don't see how this would be possible without being in the ASP.NET events - or maybe I wrong?
The other thing I thought of was changing the GetGridView button to a standard HTML and calling the javascript postback from the client click event?? This way it would do a real postback and I would end up in Page_load.
Taking everything into effect i don't want to the change the GridView asp.net control as it funcions well as an asp.net server control but i am unsure how i would do this.
I remember a document being available that said "how to use asp.net webforms without server controls" but i can't seem to find it. I suppose using webforms like asp.net MVC - but i can't change the project to MVC - its out of my control.
I would love to hear some feedback with regards to how to do this or comments etc.
I find ASP.NET webforms to inject a lot of code smell into pages - I am using .NET 3.5 so a lot of the output is with tables etc...
If you use Request.Form["..."] then you can get the information which was filled in in standard html input fields.
Instead of keep on using the GridView control I suggest you take a look at either jqGrid or the new templating system that Microsoft put into place for jQuery (currently a plugin but expected to be part of core jQuery from version 1.5 on). These can bound to json which can be retrieved from a webmethod or pagemethod call to fill up the template with data.
Also i don't think its possible from asp.net (code behind) to receive values of an html >control without it having runat=server.
Use webmethods.
Set a client event (like 'onchange') on the html control and then in javascript function called when the event is fired you can use PageMethods to send your data to the code behind.
Some thoughts...
The GridView can't be created in a WebMethod and even if there was a way to get that to work, you'd be better off going with a genuine client side grid. As that's not an option, I don't think there is too much point in trying to make any major changes to your existing pages.
ViewState
Changing the textboxes, buttons etc to HTML versions, would gain you a little bit in reduced Viewstate size but add a bit of complexity in how you handle interactions with the page. You can add runat="server" to HTML controls which will give you control over what is rendered and still have access to the control on the server side.
.Net 4 gives you far more control over viewstate but unfortunately in 3.5 its not as easy.
The GridViews
You could wrap the GridViews in UpdatePanels. That's a 'cheap' way to add some interactivity to your pages although you won't be gaining anything in terms of performance.
It's also still possible to manipulate the Gridview using jQuery on the client-side. There a lots of tutorials, blog posts etc explaining how to do this on the Internet.
MVC with Webforms
Its also possible to mix ASP.Net MVC with Webforms in the same website. As it sounds like you are familiar weith MVC, you might want to consider this approach for any new pages. Here's a blog post explaining how to do this.
Update:
Here's a more recent article by Scott Hanselman on how to use MVC with an existing Webforms application.

MVC Custom Control?

I am trying to figure out how to use/create a custom control in ASP.NET MVC 2.
I created a custom control earlier and compiled it (ccontrol.dll), the control renders a div, textbox and a button + some javascript in order to post a comment on the website. It could be a static aspx page that i wanted to allow my visitors to add a comment to. I would then drag my control from the toolbar to the aspx page and run it, it would then render all the code needed on the webpage including fetching the data from a datasource and displaying that inside the div. The user could also just type in a comment and press the button to save it to the datasource.
Is this possible to convert to MVC 2? Any good tutorial that covers custom controls and MVC 2? (Ideally would be if the control could be made into a .dll file that i then could reuse on future webpages)
How do i write a custom control the mvc way? Any good tutorials on the topic?
You cannot design Custom Controls according the normal asp.net style because in Mvc there is no ViewState and there are no server side control events. Data are returned back to the server through a Model Binding process. The fact that rendering and filling data in are handled in separated pieces of code make difficult to implement complex server controls in Mvc.
However, I developed a theory, and also a toolset to make quite easily custom controls ina Mvc too in the full spirit of the Mvc paradigm i.e keeping separation of concerns between Views and Controllers. See My Codeplex project. There, you will find pointers to documentation and tutorials on my blog. If you need assistance feel free to contact me.
No it is not possible to use custom controls in ASP.NET MVC. you need to re-write in MVC way

Having different asp.net controls tied to each other by having the same datasource

In Winforms you can have two controls tied to the same datasource in a way that when you select a record in one of them, the same record is selected in the other control.
Something that has always bugged me is being unable to non programatically reproduce this behavior in web development. Is there any way to do this, framework, control toolkit, anything?
You will be able to in ASP.NET 4.0 with Sys.Observer.makeObservable.
The short answer is no.
In order to achieve this result in Windows Forms, the data presenter control (a DataGrid for instance) needs to trigger an event handled by the Datasource that, in turn, (as it keeps a list of all data presenter controls bound to it) order them to rebind.
Although this effect can be reproduced in a web scenario, it's definetly not simple because of a simple fact: It's not single layered. The Datasource is on server.
The framework or control toolkit that would expose this feature would need to create a client representation of the Datasource that would reproduce the process I described in Javascript or other technology.
I personally know Telerik, DevExpress and some other widely used frameworks and I ensure you. " non programatically" you won't be able to do this.

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