I have a pretty big data entry form which has many text fields which are dynamically added on the browser by the user. So i can not use server side controls such as asp:TextBox.
What would be the best way to submit the form and capture all the data on the server side?
I use asp.net 3.5 (web forms)
register a hidden field in your asp net page
put your changes on client side into it.
load hidden field in postback
VALIDATE SOOO MUCH!
Related
I developed a screen in which there are fields like first name,username,password and email. I validated these fields using javascript and came to know that javascript is not that safe. So i decided to validate on server side also. My question is whether i can use asp controls like requiredfieldvalidator, regularexpression validator to validate the form or i have to validate through server side coding??
Usually you can, it depends on how you implement the form, whether you use ASP.NET/SharePoint controls on it
You can definitely use asp controls like requiredfieldvalidator and regularexpression to validate your form. I've done this before.
Extra information
Thing to watch out for: If the page that you put these controls on is a publishing page, e.g. based on a custom layout page where editors can go in change content, the asp validator controls will still try to validate in 'Edit' mode. Therefore any SharePoint out of the box form submissions that added to the form will also trigger that the validation on your custom fields. In my case, I had a form on the page layout and some content fields, every time I edited the page, I couldn't save changes or publish until I filled out my form.
The way around it is either, stick your validator controls in EditModePanels with the PageDisplayMode set to "Display":
<PublishingWebControls:EditModePanel ID="EditModePanel1" SuppressTag="true" runat="server" PageDisplayMode="Display">
Your validator control here
</PublishingWebControls:EditModePanel>
or check for edit mode in the code behind on page load and turn the validators off from there.
I have a form that resides inside a jQuery UI dialog, the form have some fields such as first, last name, etc... and also allow file upload. I can't use Ajax.BeginForm() since ajax doesn't allow upload (or does it?), so I have to use the regular Html.BeginForm() for my form to call my ActionResult. But I need to do some validation on the server and displays the response within that form, or displays a message if the form successfully posted. How do I displays the message in that jQuery UI modal dialog?
Thanks all.
Instead of using Ajax.BeginForm which is tied to the crappy Microsoft Ajax library use a normal Html.BeginForm with jQuery and the excellent jQuery.form plugin which allows you to ajaxify forms (even forms that contain file upload fields).
I have the need to have 2 html forms on one page. One for login details, and one for feedback. Both forms cannot have runat="server" attrib.
Any suggestions?
Handle one of the forms as a regular HTML form -- don't use runat="server". Extract the values from any post from the Request.Form collection manually (since there won't be any server-side variables corresponding to the form).
Alternatively, put all the elements in the same form, but use different controls to submit. Each set of controls (and their submit button) should be in a different validation group to avoid having validation errors due to elements you don't care about. Handle the form processing in the callback for the submit button.
Also, I would recommend an eventual move to ASP.NET MVC. MVC is a much better architecture from the perspective of the web. It more closely aligns with the stateless web model and does not have the limitations imposed in ASP.NET to help it mimic WinForms development.
When using web forms, you should only ever have one form on the page. Probably crap, but such is a web forms world...
wrap one form around the whole page. Then when a button is clicked (or whatever event you are using) you should be able access the values of all the controls on the page.
Yes as you said, in ASP.NET you can't have more then one form element. but, you can handle more then one action in the same form. Do not use form's action attribute, use asp.net server controls like <asp:Button>, and write your logic into the event of the controls that post back.
ASP.NET page framework architecture allows single form with runat="server" attribute. You need not to worry about this thing. Place the controls on to the webform for two different purposes and handle the click events of two asp.net server control <asp:Button> separately.
You just have to split them up logically inside the one form. If you use validator and don't want the two "forms" to require the other values filled in, you have a property on the .NET controls called ValidationGroup, that just needs to be the same for all in one "form".
You won't be able to make two forms with runat="server" in one page.
Here is a nice solution
Can I have two separate forms runat="Server" in one page
though not a straight forward approach, you CAN have multiple server side forms on the same page , but it has its own limitations. Cost $50
I need to develop a page which has 2 dropdownlist.
Options of dropdownlist 2 are based on selection of dropdownlist 1.
I have 2 methods to change the dropdownlist 2. What will you choose?
1:
Postback when users select dropdownlist 1 and change dropdownlist 2.
Pros:
Can use the postback feature, can use the asp.net validator
Cons:
Need to communicate with server (more traffic)
Users will see the page loading in the status bar.
2:
Get all the data (not very much data) in a JSON object when loading the page and change the dropdownlist 2 using javascript.
Pros:
Don't need to communicate with server(less traffic)
Cons:
Can't use the postback feature and validator and more troublesome to write server validation.
Also, I usually write the JSON object to the page as follows:
var locations = <asp:Literal runat="server" id="litLocation" text="[]" />
And then set the "litLocation" in page_load after the data is processed by datacontractjsonserializer.
Do you do it in the same way?
I prefer the second option, no need to reload the whole page just to refresh one dropdown list. I'd also do the client side dev in jQuery, much easier. You can do the client side validation for the change event of the first dropdown in jQuery as well, and keep the form submit validation in ASP.NET.
Have a look at the selectChain plugin for jQuery (demo's etc here).
Why not have your javascript call the server when the select box is clicked on, using a GET method, and fill in the select box, using json as the response, then, when an option is picked then fill in the second select box with another ajax request.
This would be scalable, in that if you want to add more options you just change the server, and everything is centralized.
You will need to validate when the form is submitted anyway, as it is possible to change a value of a form to something illegal using some debugging tools, such as Firebug, so never trust anything from a webpage until you have validated it.
So, no point worrying about the validation until the form is actually submitted.
I'm using various ASP.NET controls out of the box such as the CreateUserWizard control, Login control etc... For custom controls, I have sanitized my inputs by making sure they conform to expected values. However, is this required for the controls such as the CreateUserWizard control, or is that handled internally? Do I need to provide any extra server side validation to these controls and, if so, would it be best to do it in the "CreateUserWizardControl_CreatingUser" event?
Thanks
If input is coming from any form, then treat it as suspect. I've included some links here that may help you:
http://www.codersbarn.com/post/2008/11/01/ASPNET-Data-Input-Validation.aspx
If you have request validation enabled then form data with script tags will generate an error automatically.