We are plannning to use Ajax in our ASP.net project. However, we still want the member panel of our web site to work in all browsers. We have decided not to use Ajax in some forms where browser independence is must.
I am now confused with whether we should use ASP.NET controls or HTML controls or both?
I have two questions:
Are there any problems that I might face using either of approach?
Also which one is better considering efficiency and performance?
The Asp.Net Controls including the ajax controls are independent of browsers, asp.net will detect your browser and try to render the best html/javascript for that browser. So you are good with server controls.
If you are going to implement the project in asp.net then for all the controls that need to be accessed via code at server side needs to be asp.net controls. Those controls that are static and only displaying some value can be html controls.
The main point is that the asp.net controls are rendered to html controls... so the client who views the web-page actually gets the html controls.
For AJAX refer this
ASP controls and HTML controls as complementary.
ASP controls bring facilities for programming like the viewstate (the control keeps its content after a post back), the binding with datatable, and a lot of presentation properties. It is really an advantage in terms of time and maintainability to use these controls. They also manage some security feature like html code injection. ASP controls could be controled and managed from the code behind page.
HTML controls are out of the native ASP.NET page process. It is sometime a good thing to have particular control that you don't want ASP.NET take in charge and modify, but it is not the core of an ASP.NET web application.
If you can use HTML - it is always better - as it is much faster.
The use of ASP controls should work on all browsers as far as I know, but it less efficient.
Better create a small example and test it on some browsers before you decide.
(I've used ajax on both explorer and Firefox and it works)
Related
We have an ASP.Net ScriptControl that is shared between web app projects. One project is being converted to MVC 3 and the shared control needs to be used but of course MVC doesn't have controls or view state.
My ideal solution would be to wrap the control in a html helper so it can be placed on the view. Then, I can send/receive data to/from the control inside the helper.
Is it possible AND is it decently trivial to do so?
As long as it doesn't rely on ViewState or Postback, yes, you usually can.
To be safe in this scenario I would include an ASPX page in your solution rather than attempting to hack it to work. It 'can' work - at times but behavior can be buggy depending what it is looking for behind the scenes so it can be a hack.
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.
I was wondering, whats the best way to handle common HTML controls in ASP.NET? I mean, ASP.NET server controls generate too much crap inside the code so I rather use common controls.
But how about databind and how to manage those common objects correctly (such as combobox, textbox and so on)?
Don't forget that you can always set runat="server" on any control - that includes standard html form controls such as <input> and <select>, and also other elements like <div>. Anything, really.
This means that you can regain control of the html output in your WebForms pages quite effortlessly - as long as you don't need viewstate or any other more advanced databinding/state managing that ASP.NET normally handles for you.
That said, learning to use the ASP.NET MVC Framework is not a bad idea, since it helps you regain control of much more than just the html output. Generally, creating a page in ASP.NET MVC takes a little more work, since there are no drag-n-drop controls like gridview, textbox or even repeater. Instead, you use html helper methods and regular foreach loops, which means you have to type a lot more code. However, the MVC framework is designed so that you won't have to repeat much code anyway.
If you're concerned about the html markup generated by the WebForms ASP.NET engine, i suggest you take a look at ASP.NET MVC. It's purpose is specifically to give you the control you need over the generated html.
If you don't want to start learning ASP.NET MVC, ASP.NET 4.0 WebForms gives you more flexibility in the generated HTML (such as enabling the ViewState for a specific control only, setting the html id's etc.).
As for the databinding, again if you study MVC in depth and start thinking in terms of action -> result you can gain a lot more control and flexibility.
Later edit: I forgot to mention Razor, the new ViewEngine under development at microsoft. It's currently in beta and only inside WebMatrix, a very stripped down 'getting-started type' development platform for ASP.NET. MVC combined with the very clean code you can write using Razor will be in my opinion an important trend-setter in the web development world.
There's a reason ASP.Net controls generate all that "crap". It's so you can databind and manage those objects correctly. Using standard html controls is useful when you don't need direct databinding or if you have no need to manipulate the control through server-side code.
The best way to handle common HTML controls in ASP.Net is not to handle them directly. By using them to handle data and functionality, you're basically neutering .Net. You might as well go back to classic ASP.
We have a ASP.NET web application written in VB.NET where we build content programmatically during the Init event.
We make extensive use of user controls, building them on the fly, and I now want to start including SilverLight content.
Is there an easy way of embedding a SilverLight application in a control, and then instantiating the whole thing in code, in the same way as you'd programmatically add ordinary ASP.NET controls to a page?
The SilverLight component itself works fine when added to a page using the <object> tag but I really want to be able to reuse it elsewhere in code.
Since I'm expecting use of SilverLight to increase in our application, and the asp:Silverlight control seems now to be deprecated, I'm looking for an alternative way of wrapping the content.
Thanks for any pointers.
You can make your own version of the deprecated Silverlight control - all it has to do is emit the appropriate <object> html during its Render event. This is a really straight forward 5 minute task to roll one of these up.
i know this question have been mentioned alot here but mine is a little more updated,
now with ASP.net 4 and new Ajax client templating plus JASON services.
so if i got all these new capabilities will i really need server side controls as long as i can bind on client side, create data-views on client side heck i can even use data-context and apply CRUD operations on clients side.
so i actually i wont need button_click server side event or what so ever...
i am asking this because i own some commercial Controls like Telerik and Component art and they both offer client side operations ow but still i am confused as to my knowledge creating these controls will still have to go through Page Life cycle
please advise me.
The last Webforms app I created I had very few server controls on the page. Any save or update action I used plain HTML controls and jQuery for AJAX. I don't use any third-party control packs, but I know if you use jQuery you can find a jQuery plugin that will do what you need. There are hundreds of them out there and they're free.
If you are thinking about avoiding the page life cycle then I strongly suggest looking at the asp.net mvc framework. It allows for a lot more freedom and control over the HTML you produce. This makes it much easier to do AJAX and jQuery.