I was going through an article on event bubbling in asp.net and came to know that although it is possible to subscribe to the click event of a user control's button from the containing page, "doing so would break some of the object oriented rules of encapsulation". A better idea is to publish an event in the user control to allow any interested parties to handle the event.
My question is that exactly how does a direct subscription to the button's click event from a containing page would break the object oriented rules of encapsulation?
Apologies if its a dumb question. :|
Thanks!
The Button is supposed to be encapsulated by the UserControl.
If the Page binds directly to events on the button, then the page is now dependent on the inner workings of the UserControl.
The Page should be consuming the UserControl, not the UserControl's button. If the author of the UserControl later wants to remove the button and use some fancy new method of firing its "Submit" event, your page could be broken because the button may no longer exist.
For that matter, if the owner of the UserControl decides in v1.1 to rename the button from btnSubmit to SubmissionButton, it could break your page, as well.
Better to consume the UserControl and let it be concerned with its own inner workings.
The idea is that the button of the control is an implementation detail of the UI of the control. If you republish the click event you could reimplement that button as an ImageButton, LinkButton, etc.
I think it's OK to attach an event handler at the page level to the button if the button is a permanent fixture of the UI. It saves a lot of event code, especially with a lot of buttons.
Related
I have the following scenario:
UserControlA contains a <asp:Button id="bSomeid" onClick="AddItem" /> with some code to an item to a shopping basket in AddItem.
UserControlB contains some LinkButton's that dynamically add a selection of UserControlA to the page in the OnClick event.
This is all done in an UpdatePanel. It is a little more complicated but I have pruned the information to what I believe is causing the problem, I will add more information if necessary.
The problem I have is that it takes 2 clicks for the AddItem event to trigger after I have added the items to the page after clicking the LinkButton.
I understand why this is happening - it is to late in the page cycle to register events for the next post back in the onclick - but can anyone think of a way around this? Can I force an event to be triggered on the next postback? I have tried to think of a way to run my code in page_load but I requuire access to the sender in the onClick.
Using .NET 4.0.
EDIT
I managed to find a way to get the link button sending the request in the Page_Load (using Request.Form["__EVENTTARGET"];) so I moved my code to the Page_load event. It still requires 2 clicks so I am assuming it isn't something to do with the onClick being registered to late.
Are there any other general things to check that could cause a button to require 2 clicks to post an event properly?
If your suspicion about being late in page life cycle is true then you can try using ScriptManager.RegisterAsyncPostBackControl method to register dynamically added controls in the link button click - considering that your button is within user control, you need to add public method into UserControlA that would actually register the button bSomeid1 and link button click from UserControlB would actually call the A control's method.
EDIT :
Another cause for button click not happening can be that button being dynamic control is not added in the page hierarchy when post-back happens (or it gets added very late in the page life cycle when the post back data is already processed). A really full-proof solution should add dynamic controls back to the page hierarchy in page_load it-self (and strictly maintaining same controls ids within hierarchy). If that's not possible then you can sniff the request (Request.Form) to detect the post-back.
In your case, you should ascertain if the button is indeed causing the post-back on each click. If yes, what is the POST data (Request.Form) for the first request - what is the __EVENTTARGET value on the first click (and post-back)? That should start your trouble-shooting.
On the other hand, a simple work-around could be to use html anchor element (you can still use link button) and have a javascript handler in the click event that would set some hidden variable and then submit the form (you can simulate the click on hidden button to trigger ASP.NET client side submit pipeline) . Now the hidden variable value can be used on the post-back to determine which link button has been clicked.
"Are there any other general things to check that could cause a button to require 2 clicks to post an event properly?"
Does it require two clicks on the control, or does it take accept a single click elsewhere on the screen, and then fire first time with a single click on the control?
I have my own (similar) issue with the Updatepanel where the first (expected) trigger does not fire and it seems that a single click elsewhere, and then the subsequent triggers fires first time (which totals 2 clicks)
[edit] Since you are working on this ATM, it may help me as well. Do you have a textbox with a trigger event on it? I do, and if I leave this blank (so that it does not fire) then there is no need for a second click.
I have an ASP.NET web form on which I'm displaying a list of database items via user controls, generating the user controls dynamically - working fine.
Also on the page, I have an asp:dropdownlist filled with items that can be added to this database list. Along with this dropdown I have a button 'ADD'. My intent is that the user chooses and item, clicks add, and then the list of user controls on the form will include this new item.
I have all this working.
My issue is that the user control has a button 'DELETE', which removes the selected item from the list. That works, EXCEPT when I add a new item. Because my 'add' button event is always fired after Page_Load, even if I regenerate the list of user controls, the internal user control click events won't fire because the controls weren't created as part of Page_Load.
I need to know what I'm doing wrong, or best practices here, any advice. I tried to be precise in the description of the problem, but if I've not succeeded, let me know and I can add more details.
SIMPLE RESTATE: I need to know how to add a dynamically created user control to a page via a page button click event, and still have the user control internal click(etc) events firing.
Thanks for any help.
EDIT: Based on the feedback from the gentlemen here, and doing some further research related to their suggestions, I ended up implementing a solution based on what's presented on this page:
http://ryanfarley.com/blog/archive/2005/03/11/1886.aspx
Here's a snippet showing how I dealt with this. This snippet resides in my PreInit event handler. Not exactly an elegant weapon for a civilized age, but sometimes a blaster is all you've got to use.
'Look to see if button for adding a new client number has been
'clicked. If so, call the sub to add the item NOW, so that it
'is able to have it's internal click events fire.
For Each control_string As String In Request.Form
Dim ctl As Control = Page.FindControl(control_string)
If (ctl IsNot Nothing) AndAlso (ctl.ID = "cmdAddClientNumber") Then
Me.AddClientNumberToList()
Exit For
End If
Next
On the button handler, you initially add the UserControl to the Page. OnPreInit (which will next be fired when the user clicks Delete on the UserControl), you should re-add the UserControl - so that it exists, and can handle the Delete button event.
You will need to devise your own state tracking mechanism to determine that you need to add the UserControl during PreInit. I generally use ViewState, as evidenced by this seemingly similar post.
Similar question:
How to create and use custom control with UpdatePanel added to the page programmatically
Dynamic control should be re-added to the control tree OnPreInit, see documentation:
PreInit - Create or re-create dynamic controls.
ASP.NET Page Life Cycle Overview
The situation:
I have user controls with buttons that have hooked events. Controls with events need to be initialized in Page_Load or earlier.
I wish to spawn these user controls dynamically by clicking an Add button.
It is important to remember that events, such as click events, are not fired until just before Page_LoadComplete.
Broken Solution A:
Page_Load: Dynamically create an Add button, hook click event.
User clicks on the Add button, triggers postback.
Page_Load: Creates the Add button as usual, and hooks click event.
Page_Load: Doesn't know that the Add button has been clicked yet, so it doesn't know to spawn the user control!
AddButton_Click: Page finally aware that a new user control should be added upon the next Page_Load.
User cannot see the control they added, because another Page_Load has been triggered.
User reloads the page by clicking a button, refreshing the page, etc.
Page_Load: Creates Add button, and hooks click event. Now aware of added user control, creates user control. Hooks events within the user control.
User clicks on button within user control, triggers just fine.
Result: User has clicked to Add a new user control, the server is aware that the control should exist, but the user does not see it until they trigger the page to load again (by clicking another button, or refreshing, etc).
Naturally, I took a look at the life-cycle, and see that Page_LoadComplete occurs after events, so if I place any event-dependent code in Page_LoadComplete, all should be well?
Broken Solution B:
Page_LoadComplete: Dynamically create an Add button, hook click event.
User clicks on the Add button, triggers postback.
Page_LoadComplete: Creates the Add button as usual, and hooks click event.
AddButton_Click: Page aware that a new user control should be added upon the next Page_LoadComplete.
Page_LoadComplete: Aware of the button click, dynamically adds the control, with its own internal button click event.
User clicks on button within the added user control, but it does not trigger!!
Result: Everything works great, except the button within the added user control is inert.
The conundrum is: I need controls to spawned by a button click, which means I need to put my Controls.Add(...) code in Page_LoadComplete. Inversely, I need the controls being added to have working events, which means the Controls.Add(...) code need to be in Page_Load. I have a perfect dichotomy.
The only janky solution I can think of is taking solution A and forcing the page to reload manually after clicking the Add button, which is a waste of bandwidth and processing.
This might not be the best practice, but you can check Request.Form for the evidence of add button click during the Page_Init event and add the controls there. It should solve your problem.
I have a datalist and want to dynamically add buttons to it. I am using the OnItemCommand datalist event and setting the CommandName/ CommandArgument attributes of the button.
However I am having trouble with handling the button click - does not seem to fire.
It works when I declared a button on the aspx page, but not for buttons that are dynamically created.
I hope this makes sense, and any help would be great.
Thanks
You can only create dynamic controls on PreInit or Init if you want to handle associated events. Otherwise, on postback, they won't exist at the moment of event handling and because of that, your handler method won't be called.
Internet is full of resources about how to handle dynamic controls. Let me know if you need any reference.
When loading a page for the first time (!IsPostback), I am creating a button in code and adding it to my page, then adding an event handler to the click event.
However, when clicking the button, after the page reloads, my event handler does not fire.
Can anyone explain why?
#Brad: Your answer isn't complete; he's most likely doing it too late in the page lifecycle, during the Page_Load event.
Okay, here's what you're missing.
ASP.NET is stateless. That means, after your page is rendered and sent to the browser, the page object and everything on it is destroyed. There is no link that remains on the server between that page and what is on the user's browser.
When the user clicks a button, that event is sent back to the server, along with other information, like the hidden viewstate field.
On the server side, ASP.NET determines what page handles the request, and rebuilds the page from scratch. New instances of server controls are created and linked together according to the .aspx page. Once it is reassembled, the postback data is evaluated. The viewstate is used to populate controls, and events are fired.
This all happens in a specific order, called the Page Lifecycle. In order to do more complex things in ASP.NET, such as creating dynamic controls and adding them to the web page at runtime, you MUST understand the page lifecycle.
With your issue, you must create that button every single time that page loads. In addition, you must create that button BEFORE events are fired on the page. Control events fire between Page_Load and Page_LoadComplete.
You want your controls loaded before ViewState information is parsed and added to controls, and before control events fire, so you need to handle the PreInit event and add your button at that point. Again, you must do this EVERY TIME the page is loaded.
One last note; page event handling is a bit odd in ASP.NET because the events are autowired up. Note the Load event handler is called Page_Load...
You need to add the button always not just for non-postbacks.
If you are not reattaching the event handler on every postback, then the event will not exist for the button. You need top make sure the event handler is attached every time the page is refreshed. So, here is the order of events for your page:
Page is created with button and event handler is attached
Button is clicked, causing a postback
On postback, the page_load event skips the attaching of the event handler becaue of your !IsPostback statement
At this point, there is no event handler for the button, so clicking it will not fire your event
That is because the event binding that happens needs to be translated in to HTML. This postback that happens if bound to the page between OnInit and OnLoad. So if you want the button to bind events correclty make sure you do the work in OnInit.
See the Page Life Cycle explaination.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms178472.aspx