I have a checkboxlist and textbox controls on my asp.net page and the are dynamically created and added to the page. When I populate the values and submit the form, the values are empty by the time it hits the server. Any help?
They are empty because they are being re-created too late in the page lifecycle.
Without knowing the precise point in the ASP.NET Page Lifecycle you're adding your controls, (though I'd guess it's either Page_Load or an event handler), it goes something like this:
Build control tree
Add dynamic controls
Render
(Postback)
Build control tree
Reconstitute viewstate & bind to Post values
Add dynamic controls
Render
To solve this, you need to make sure your controls are created early enough in the lifecycle. Standard practice is to break the "control creation" into a separate method, and during CreateChildControls, check to see if they need to be created:
override CreateChildControls()
{
if(IsPostBack)
{
EnsureDynamicControlsAreAdded();
}
}
This way, if they do need to be initially added by something as far late in the lifecycle as an event handler (Button_Click, for example), you can call the same EnsureDynamicControlsAreAdded method from there as well, and on the next round-trip they'll be created much earlier.
Further to Rex M's answer, you could try creating the controls in the "Page_Init" event - this is one of the first events in the page lifecycle, and is where I would normally create controls in a viewstateless page (NB: If you do this, do not surround the content of the Page_Init handler with an "if (!IsPostback)" - this will prevent it from working as intended).
Related
I am pretty sure back in the days of ASP.NET 1.0/1.1, controls created during runtime needs to be added before Page_Load event of the Page Lifecycle (i.e. inside Page_Init).
Here's one article by Microsoft on it (for .NET 1.0/1.1):
HOW TO: Dynamically Create Controls in ASP.NET:
Note When you create dynamic controls
on a Web Form, you must create the
controls and add them to the controls
collection in either the Page_Init
event handler or the Page_Load event
handler. Otherwise, the controls may
not behave as expected.
However, in a few posts here, it seems like the above is not the case anymore. Controls added within Page_Load seems to be working for everyone else. Some of the posts include:
creating dynamic control in asp.net
Viewstate - utter confusion.
I've tried it myself and indeed it worked though I've not done enough test to fish out any unexpected behavior.
So is Page_Load a safe stage to add dynamic controls? Or is it only for .NET 2.0 and above?
I have studied this with Reflector, and the Control class does indeed bring things up to speed when you add them dynamically, no matter when you add them. It does everything - loads viewstate/controlstate, calls postback events, calls event handlers, etc. I don't know if it was different in ASP.NET 1.x days, but in 2.0 and above this is the case.
As for the "dangers" - there are some gotchas that the inexperienced user might trip over, so it is recommended that you add them in Page_Init or before. (Note that the PreInit event only applies to the page itself, not the Master Page or subcontrols). Off the top of my head (I'm sure there might be a few more):
By default viewstate loads positionally. That is, it ignores control IDs and just takes control placement in the tree into account when loading viewstate. If your dynamic controls were present when the viewstate was serialized, but are not present when it is deserialized, the wrong viewstate item might get assigned to the wrong control, thus leading to exceptions. This can be changed by some settings, though I'm now too lazy to search for them.
Since the "bringing up to speed" happens when the dynamic control gets added to the page, the order of some events might be unexpected. For example, if you add a TextBox control to the page in the Page_PreRender event, the Changed event of the TextBox will happen there and then. If your event handler code depends on the event happening with the rest of them before PreRender, then you are screwed.
You can add controls at any time. However, they'll only work with viewstate if you add them before page loads.
In fact, if you check the .Net 2.0 version of the page lifecycle link you posted, you'll stilll find this quote under the PreInit event:
Use this event for the following: ... Create or re-create dynamic controls.
The Page_Load event handler is an acceptable place to add controls. If you re-read your note you will notice that they state that.
Note: When you create dynamic controls
on a Web Form, you must create the
controls and add them to the controls
collection in either the Page_Init
event handler or the Page_Load
event handler. Otherwise, the controls
may not behave as expected.
If the ASP.NET 2.0 article you linked to, under "Catch-up Events for Added Controls", they discuss how added controls are brought up to speed with the page.
I have next situation:
I load dynamic controls during on init, and I do correct initialization.
I add dynamic control before postback
I don't add anything later in load
control is loaded and diplayed correctly
I press postback and nothing happens
Why I really don't know.. I tried everything. So control IS properly initialised. __EVENTTARGET shows the same path as the UniqueId of linkbutton that is firing it. All controls in tree have viewstate=true. So, I really don't know what this is not working.
Any idea? I am desperate.. I don't know.. if anyone could suggest me, if not solution, then just things I should check would be very good.
Is this problem just for this page or do you have other pages on the same site with the same problem?
I am assuming that you have the same problem on all pages.
It could be relate do javascript not being allowed. You could try to add the site to local intranet security are, then refresh the page.
Dynamic controls have to be added back to the control tree on each postback for the events to fire.
Dynamically created controls are not part of their container's viewstate, so setting it to TRUE wouldn't have any effect on the situation and are not evaluated until after the on_init call completes anyways.
I would wrap the logic that is populating these dynamic controls in with a conditional check for a postback if(!IsPostBack)
{ //Insert logic here }
If your dynamic controls take input from the user, or need access to their view state, then you would need to move this call to the Page_Load method as this is the point in the page's lifecycle where viewstate is first evaluated.
Is there any kind of event out there that would allow for a preload post back event.
The reason I ask is I have a control that adds sibling controls to it on postback events, however, by the time it has loaded the post back its too late to add the new control to the control collection. Therefore, the controls are never updated correctly.
Thanks!
Try the Init event.
Override CreateChildControls (make sure to call base!). In your postback event handler, make sure you are storing somewhere the list of controls that should be created dynamically, so when CreateChildControls gets invoked very early in the lifecycle on the next go-round, it will recreate the controls built on the last postback.
Here is a quick hack. You can always, query the __EventTarget and or the value of the submit button in init and can load dynamically the control.
But doing so, may not be appropriate as your control hierarchy would change and could cause problems.
As above, dynamic controls have to be added during the page Init event, so that they can be properly handled within the page's Viewstate. You might want to turn the Viewstate off for the page as well, since it can fire errors at you if the controls change.
As has already been stated the proper place to add dynamic controls is in the Init event.
Here's an article with more information.
Dynamic Web Controls, Postbacks, and View State
To get a better understanding of the ASP .NET page life cycle see:
ASP.NET Page Life Cycle Overview
This page explains the event order (and what happens in each one) in a postback, it helped me more than once.
I've just found this link, that can also be of use to you
I have a site that I am currently working on in ASP.NET 2.0 using the usual WebForm stuff and ASP.NET AJAX 1.0. Is it possible to bind an event to a dynamically created control after the Page.Load event?
I have a table <td> element that I am dynamically creating similarly to this code:
' Create Link Button
lnk.ID = String.Format("lnkDetails_{0}", dr("Id"))
lnk.Text = dr("Name").ToString()
lnk.CommandArgument = dr("Id").ToString()
AddHandler lnk.Click, AddressOf DetailsLink_Click
cName.Controls.Add(lnk)
This this code is looped over for each row in a database (and of course more cells are added to the table, including an ImageButton with an event. The events work flawlessly when I execute this code during events leading up to and including Page.Load. I need to be able to fill this table with current data, which is updated during a btnClick Event elsewhere on the page, which occurs after this Page_Load event, so I am populating with old data. If I change this code to Page.LoadComplete, events stop working.
This data is a summary display of various components of an application, things like somebody's name, which when updated on a 'detail' form, updates the database by partial postback (a requirement), then it needs to show the update in this 'summary' section after an update. Currently it takes 2 postbacks to actually see the change in the 'summary' section, so effectively the summary is 1 step behind the changes (clear as mud?)
What would be the best way for me to populate this table with current data (which is available during/after Page.LoadComplete), but still have an event fire when a link is clicked (the event causes an UpdatePanel to display the 'detail' form).
I also have jQuery at my disposal and the usual ASP.NET AJAX methods, also javascript is a requirement for the website, so I do not need to degrade for unsupported browsers.
This is my first ASP.NET web application and need some help figuring out the best way to make this happen (I'm well versed in PHP, Django and the usual ways to do web forms - things like having multiple forms on one page o_O).
Update:
There really isn't a good way to bind control events to controls after Page_Load. The overall architecture of the pages is there is one ASP.NET form encompassing the entire page, there is only 1 aspx page. I am using master pages (however it doesn't have any obvious implications to my issue).
The page is split into a left and right 'pane', the left is a summary of all the data (in an update panel), the right 'pane' has 6 'tabs' implemented each as their own user control, each with several form fields and an update button all in it's own UpdatePanel.
An update on any of these tabs only refreshes the summary panel (UpdatePanel.update()) and its own panel. The 'refreshing' and event binding of dynamic controls of the summary from the db happens during Page_Load and the Update Button event updates db data. (The control event happens after Page_Load). I want to avoid doing a double post to get the summary to update, any thoughts are helpful.
You need to postback the whole page after your data changes in the 'btnClick Event elsewhere on the page'. It sounds like you have an UpdatePanel and it sounds like this is catching the postback of your btnClick event handler. Put the btnClick outside the UpdatePanel or change its triggers so that your btnClick forces a postback/refresh of your data. Or, redesign your table so it's AJAXly-refreshed when you click on btnClick, it's hard to get you more details without knowing more about the structure of your page and controls.
Good luck!
You can bind to an event whenever you want. It's just a simple event after all. But not all places might be suitable because you have to take into account when the event fires. And in most cases this happens between Page_Load and Page_PreRender. That includes the click event on a LinkButton. In general, I would recommend to add your dynamically created controls in the Page_Init stage.
You have to add the controls before Page.Load in order to maintain ViewState between postbacks, so use the OnInit event handler for that.
But once they're added, you should be able to bind event handlers (such as OnClick) at any point during or after the Page.Load... for example in your grid's ItemDataBound (or something like) or in the Page.PreRender.
I am adding some user controls dynamically to a PlaceHolder server control. My user control consists of some labels and some textbox controls.
When I submit the form and try to view the contents of the textboxes (within each user control) on the server, they are empty.
When the postback completes, the textboxes have the data that I entered prior to postback. This tells me that the text in the boxes are being retained through ViewState. I just don't know why I can't find them when I'm debugging.
Can someone please tell me why I would not be seeing the data the user entered on the server?
Thanks for any help.
This is based on .NET v1 event sequence, but it should give you the idea:
Initialize (Init event)
Begin Tracking View State (checks if postback)
Load View State (if postback)
Load Postback Data (if postback)
Load (Load event)
Raise Changed Events (if postback)
Raise Postback Events (if postback)
PreRender (PreRender event)
Save View State
Render
Unload (Unload event)
Dispose
As you can see, the loading of ViewState data back to the controls happen before the Load event. So in order for your dynamically-added controls to "retain" those values, they have to be present for the ASP.NET page to reload the values in the first place. You would have to re-create those controls at the Init stage, before Load View State occurs.
I figured out yesterday that you can actually make your app work like normal by loading the control tree right after the loadviewstateevent is fired. if you override the loadviewstate event, call mybase.loadviewstate and then put your own code to regenerate the controls right after it, the values for those controls will be available on page load. In one of my apps I use a viewstate field to hold the ID or the array info that can be used to recreate those controls.
Protected Overrides Sub LoadViewState(ByVal savedState As Object)
MyBase.LoadViewState(savedState)
If IsPostBack Then
CreateMyControls()
End If
End Sub
I believe you'll need to add the UserControl to the PlaceHolder during the Init phase of the page life cycle, in order to get the ViewState to be filled in by the Load phase to read those values. Is this the order in which you're loading those?
Ensure you are defining your dynamic controls at the class level and adding them to the ASP container:
Private dynControl As ASP.MyNamespace_MyControl_ascx
And when you instantiate the control, ensure you call LoadControl so the object is added properly:
dynControl = CType(LoadControl("~/MyNamespace/MyControl/MyControl.ascx"), ASP.MyNamespace_MyControl_ascx)
You have to create your controls in the Page_PreInit event handler. The ASP.NET server control model is tricky; you have to fully understand the page lifecycle to do it right.
As others have said, any form of control manipulation must be done before viewstate is created.
Here is a good link on the page lifecycle to help you out:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms178472.aspx
We have experienced the same thing and have handled it by using ghost controls on page_load that have the exact same .ID and then the post back picks up the events and the data. As others said it's the dynamic adding of the control after the init stages that the state is built already and controls added after aren't stored.
Hope this helps a bit.
I also want to add that I've seen user controls work the way that you'd expect them to just by setting the Control.ID property at run time. If you do not set the ID, items may get built in a different order and work oddly.