First off, I'm sorry if the title doesn't explain this very well.
I'm looking for an asp.net control that works similarly to the Visual Studio toolbox's auto-hide. In other words, when not needed, it can be "unpinned" and will slide off to the side of the screen. When needed, it can be opened and pinned to stay in place. I'd rather not do it myself using javascript if a (free) control already exists. Does anyone know of such a control? If not, has anyone implemented this type of functionality using a js library with good results? Any pointers?
Thanks in advance.
Edit:
The collapsiblePanel might work, I don't have any experience with it, but it's open source software from CodePlex.
I don't know of any free ASP.Net controls. But if you want to get it working using javascript you can do so with jQuery.
This post on StackOverflow shows how to get the autohide feature working
We use Telerik's RadSplitter. It is exactly what you are looking for.
Unfortunately, it is not free. But it worths checking out since their licensing is very flexible.
Telerik RadSplitter
Related
Well guys I have a simple question which may seem stupid - so forgive me.
My client has just asked me (as a favor) to design a single web page that has a header, 2-3 buttons, and 10-15 textboxes and is connected to SQL. Now I know I can do this (the behind-page code) but the problem is that I have no idea on how to actually design the asp page. I have very basic knowledge of html and no knowledge of CSS so I cant "code" the design.
What I require is WYSIWYG designer for asp, so I can drag and drop (kind of win forms in VS) buttons, textboxes and headings. The visual designer in VS for asp is no good for me. So is there any software (free or not) out there that can help me out? I need to do this in a day or two so I don't really have time to learn CSS/HTML.
Visual Web Developer is probably your best bet. It's free and provided by Microsoft, so it'll work and play nicely with the standard .NET control set. It's not as full featured as Visual Studio is, but for a free tool I don't think you're going to get any better than this.
That being said, you really need to learn the client end of developing ASP.NET, since there's only so far any WYSIWYG editor is going to go.
im looking for a free version of the following http://demos.telerik.com/aspnet-ajax/dock/examples/overview/defaultcs.aspx and wondered if anyone knew of anything that existed something that you can drag and snap panels in to other panels then save the layout of these panels preferably to a database. If they is no free versions anyone can think of (i have looked and cannot find anything :/ ) how easy would it be to program such a Ajax or asp control? and how could i go about doing so?
Thanks in advance
yes, ASP.NET already has this through its web parts. It's pretty similar to this control. The Telerik one looks nicer, but the web parts controls already have most of the features that Telerik offers.
You can also customize them too.
HTH.
Look at jQuery UI. Specifically their interactions area: http://jqueryui.com/demos/ It's real easy to implement.
The part you will need to supply is the storage of where everything goes.
We use their drag and drop, I didn't even know Telerik had one although we have Telerik all over our projects.
Does anybody know of a good free html editor's that works well in most browsers? I'm using visual studio 2005, if that matters.
Thanks,
-Tesh
http://www.asp.net/AjaxLibrary/AjaxControlToolkitSampleSite/HTMLEditorExtender/HTMLEditorExtender.aspx - The HtmlEditorExtender is an ASP.NET AJAX Control that enables you to extend the standard ASP.NET TextBox control with support for rich formatting.
or
http://tinymce.moxiecode.com/
or
http://ckeditor.com/
CKEditor is a really nice one. It's not especially for ASP.NET but they have stuff for ASP.NET and even for SharePoint if needed!
http://ckeditor.com
From memory it used to work well with UpdatePanels too. And yes it does work well in different browsers.
This one has been around forever and regularly updated. http://www.freetextbox.com/
Check here. I've found jHtmlArea nice to work with.
I am a c# developer.
Recently I had to design a web UI in asp .net 2.0 .I had strange problems with aligning controls in Visual studio UI.
I have used Div, table tags to align asp .net controls(labels, textbox, grid etc).
But the problem was what I saw in design surface of visual studio was entirely different (most of the time) when I view the page in browser.
The gap between controls and alignments was never perfect .I have seen other developers also doing trial and error methods without a proper guidelines.
C# coding I am pretty good and I have lots of Microsoft articles and help materials to guide me.
But I haven’t found proper articles and guidelines for UI design of asp .net pages.(may be its out there and i havent found yet?)
Can anyone through more light on this subject. Any good books ,suggestions etc?
Thanks in advance
SNC
If you want granular control over your HTML/XHTML output then I would recommend switching to ASP.NET MVC. The problems you've described are those typically encountered when using ASP.NET WebForms. As Anton mentions, you do need to gain a good understanding of XHTML and CSS as well.
While I definitly +1 everyone suggesting that you get a better grasp of CSS and positioning in general and ditch the drag and drop method of building your controls, I figure you need something sooner rather than later.
For that, I give you Yahoo!'s CSS Grids (JQuery, MooTools and other libraries also have grid layout tools) which will help you to get your UI done quickly. In the mean time read up on CSS.
(X)HTML is compositional - not unlike XAML (which is actually modeled on HTML/CSS). When building WinForms you can drag and drop your controls onto the window willy-nilly, but not so with the web. One thing the drag and drop designer misses is that (X)HTML components have a hierarchy to them. The designer tries to overcome this by using position: absolute; which is a precarious crutch.
Your controls need to be composed with their positional relationships more or less intact already and that means you'll have to edit the code by hand to put things in the proper order.
It's not the UI design per se. What you need is solid understanding of how CSS and generally styles work on the web (in short: they do poorly). So what you need is a good CSS book. Plus, you'll have to dump WYSIWYG ASP.NET page editor.
I'm curious if you feel your HTML skills are on par. Could you create this same page in HTML without visual studio and get the results you expect (using notepad)?
Regardless, start spending more time in the HTML markup and less time using the designer surface in Visual Studio. The more you understand the output that ASP.NET creates the better a web developer you will become.
A trick I use quite often is knowing that you don't need to recompile to change aspx code. Make your changes to the aspx file, save, and then refresh your browser. Also, use firefox and get the webdeveloper plugin. I use the outline block level elements quite often to understand where some of my html flow problems are occurring.
Read up on Web Design. I'm a bit behind but I've always loved zengarden and zeldman.. I'm sure there's better out there now.
I need to make a client able to drag and drop images into category-folders in an ASP.NET 3.5 web-app.
I was hoping that an option existed, that was almost as easy to use as the Reorderlist from Ajax Control Toolkit, and where I did not have to look into JQuery or similar handcoding.
What are your recommendations?
Similar questions have been asked before, like this 6 months ago...: ASP.net AJAX Drag/Drop? where MooTools is recommended, but 6 months is a long time in the ASP.NET/Ajax world, so maybe a better and even simpler option exists now?
Commercial components are also an option - well up to 200$ anyway.
My experience with the Reorder List in the Ajax Control Toolkit, as with many other 3rd party providers, is that most of them don't seem to be worth the effort. Definitely try them before you buy.
Unfortunately a lot of the samples/components out there are all too client-based and always seem to fall short on real-world uses and the sorts of interaction you need with ASP.Net applications (e.g. handling postback). Dragging a div around isn't that complicated, but that's all a lot of examples do. If your needs don't exactly mirror their offering try something else.
The Manning book ASP.NET AJAX in Action is a good reference on code for performing drag and drop. It uses Microsoft.Web.Preview, but this hasn't been updated in quite some time which is a worry. I have created a pretty good drag and drop UI with MS's PreviewDragDrop, it does work cross-browser, and it's pretty easy to code. Preview DLL's aside, the Manning book is great for understanding Microsofts AJAX API.
However, since jQuery is going to be shipped and supported with Visual Studio, I would recommend using it over anything else in a vain attempt to future-proof yourself.
A final piece of advice is never outsource your core competency. If this page is a core part of your offering you're better off implementing it yourself using library code like jQuery or Microsoft.Ajax rather than relying on a 3rd party component. However, if it's just a minor part of your site, then go ahead and use 3rd party controls.
Ref: My Version of Microsoft.Web.Preview.dll is 1.1.61025.0.
i have been very very happy with telerik's treeview control and use it for almost any asp.net application which needs a treeview drag and drop.
they allow free development licenses (not production though) so i guess you should give it a try. go to www.telerik.com and have a look
This is another Mootools suggestion, but you might find the Mif.Tree plugin useful. It's an MIT license. There are also code examples for each of the demos and API docs.
Robert>>
After spending 4-5 painful days of hacks, double-hacks and hacks to get around other hacks, I have come to the same conclusion as you. Especially the reorderlist from the ajax control toolkit drove me to the very edge of insanity.
It seems to me there is no real way around learning JQuery and simply doing the stuff myself. I used to shy away from doing client-side code, but with AJAX so much code has moved away from being just serverside.
JQuery has just been moved to the top of my personal study program.
Jquery has drag and drop controls.
Link
Maybe that will help...