I need to add requiredvalidator on a textbox programatically on a page, do I do that in page_load or some event before that?
That depends on why you need to add it. If it is always going to be there, then OnInit is a good place.
If you need to add it only after an action has occured then you want to do it after LoadViewState has been called so you can continue to add it once you add it the first time. For the first time add, most likely you will want to do it because of some post back event, so you could add it in your event handler.
I would suggest adding a placeholder to the control at the location of where you will want this control. Then you add the control when it is required. You should then store some information in ViewState to know that you added the control. You can then override LoadViewState, and add the control there if it is needed.
If you need the Validator only if the control is loaded with some data, then you add it right after the data has been loaded, be that OnLoad or some property accessor.
Page_Load is good for changing controls' settings.
EDIT :
This code tested and works :
// in page_load event :
validator.ControlToValidate = textboxToValidate.ID;
But if you're generating your validators after an event dynamically, problem might be different.
Related
From local forum i understood that PreInit can be used to handle the following
PreInit()
>Master pages can be called dynamically
>Themes can be set dynamically
>Programatically add controls to controls collection
and i read Init() is for
Init()
In this event, we can read the controls properties (set at design time). We cannot read control values changed by the user because that changed value will get loaded after LoadPostData() event fires.
Question
I am not getting the point "We cannot read control values changed by the user".Where do
users change the value of control?.Example would help me to understand the point.
PreInit: Raised after the start stage is complete and before the initialization stage begins.
Use this event for the following:
Check the IsPostBack property to determine whether this is the first time the page is being processed. The IsCallback and IsCrossPagePostBack properties have also been set at this time.
Create or re-create dynamic controls.
Set a master page dynamically.
Set the Theme property dynamically.
Read or set profile property values.
Init: Raised after all controls have been initialized and any skin settings have been applied. The Init event of individual controls occurs before the Init event of the page.
Lets say you have a textbox, a dropdownlist, some check boxes... the user enters data into them and you want to read their values by writing
var text = myTextBox.Text;
var selectedItem = ddl.SelectedItem;
this you cannot do before after the LoadPostData method has been called.
This page gives a pretty good summary of the different events and what they should be used for http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms178472.aspx. It says that PreInit should be used for ie. creating dynamic controls and Init for setting properties on them.
On the first post, you show several controls, say a textbox and a submit button.
The user types code into the textbox and click submit.
The user has changed the value of the control when he typed it in the textbox and it then got posted back to the page.
You will not be able to access the value typed in until LoadPostData has processed.
This is the pretty much the same with all other server side controls.
PreInit:
Initialize master page , user controls , dynamic controls
Init :
set the properties of controls
The value is changed through PostBack. The changes in the form data is determined by the current ViewState (which isn't loaded until later) vs the form data. Seeing as that isn't loaded until later, then you can't read any control values at that point.
I dynamically load a User Control, with an Update Panel inside a Place Holder.
When I click a button from the User Control, should refresh the Update Panel contents, but it refresh the entire page instead, and the User Control is disappearing from the page, because the page's Page_Load does not load anything if it's a PostBack.
How I can fix it?
Whenever a partial or full postback happen , Automatically all update() method of all updatepanels fire . For preventing such this behavior you need to set UpdateMode="Conditional" property . In this situation you need to specify asynchronous trigger Or ChildrenAsTriggers=true .
for preventing a dynamically loaded-usercontrol to be disappear ,It's good to save it in ViewState , Here is a tutorial and sample application
I think you'll need to reinject the control in page_load or pre_render. Dynamically created controls don't live through postback.
Make sure you are creating the control EVERY page request, regardless of GET/POST. Also, make sure you are giving it the same ID.
I like to override the CreateChildControls method.
You need to add the control page to the page in the page_init method. It has to be added on each post back. The control will retain all the values even after adding it back.
There is a full working example at this link.
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.
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 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.