Asp.Net General Local Resource tool for user control - asp.net

When I use the Visual Studio menu Tool -> Generate Local Resource, it changed aspx file by adding meta attributes to controls. But it doesnt do so for user controls that I have created.
For example, If I have used a control in the page
<myControl:SpecialLabelControl ID="myLabel" runat="server" Text="Localize Me!" />
I want "Localize Me!" to go in the resource file and a meta attribute added to the SpecialLabelControl.
How can I do this?
How does the tool create resource strings for built in controls automatically? Does it read an attribute of the property? How can I make the tool do the same to my control?

Firstly, make sure 'Text' is a publicly accessible property on your control.
Add [Localizable(true)] above the declaration, as shown in the example on this page
This will tell the IDE that this property is supposed to be picked up by resource files, and Tools -> Generate Local Resources will do the rest!
EDIT - after further research I came across this article (and excerpt from a book). It seems that UserControls you created with publicly accessible properties can't be hit by the GLR tool :(
The ones I've worked on before were classes I created as '.cs' files, not user controls, I suppose.

Add it manually into the resource file as:
myLabel.Text
Then change the control to:
<myControl:SpecialLabelControl ID="myLabel" runat="server" meta:resourceKey="LiteralIdentifyBody" />

Related

Does standard ASP.NET dropdownlist allow selected item to be copied/CTRL-C

This could be an amazingly dumb question, but ....
I don't think a standard ASP.NET dropdownlist has a "copy" function when using the context menu or CTRL-C, but a colleague insists it does and he's seen it on other sites.
The website we've written doesn't allow copy, so if the dropdownlist does allow it, what is the property to enable it?
This is standard ASP.NET control, not using javascript or any special voodoo.
I would ask your colleague to provide an example.
The standard <asp:DropDownList /> control renders to the client as a standard HTML <select /> element which does not provide copy functionality via CTRL-C or a context menu.
There is no property to enable/disable copying via an HTML <select /> element. Whenever I want to copy something from these, I have to do it from "view source".
No, I don't think so... But there's one control which may have all the functionality you want
Have a look at this:
http://www.asp.net/ajaxlibrary/AjaxControlToolkitSampleSite/ComboBox/ComboBox.aspx

Compile web application project ascx into dll

Is it possible to compile a web application project .ascx (user control) into a dll?
I want to do the following:
Use the same control in multiple websites
Embed css and .js as resources into the control
Be able to update super easy. If the user control updates, I just want to update 1 .dll
I have successfully followed this article, http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa479318.aspx.
However, that uses web site projects, and I cannot embed js css as resources into web site projects.
Any ideas? Am I going about this wrong, should I change the approach?
Conversion is easy, and could even be fully automated. It simply requires changing a few settings and base classes in the DLL Project you want your ASCX controls embedded in.
1... For each UserControl, set the ASCX file's Build Action (under Properties) to "Embedded Resource", and delete its associated designer file.
2... Save the project.
3... Right click the project and choose "Unload Project".
4... Right click it again and choose the "Edit *.csproj" option.
Change sections that look like this (where the asterisk represents your class name):
<Compile Include="*.ascx.cs">
<DependentUpon>*.ascx</DependentUpon>
<SubType>ASPXCodeBehind</SubType>
</Compile>
to look like this
<Compile Include="*.ascx.cs" />
That will cause the code-behind files to be compiled independently of the ASCX files.
5... Save changes, and right click the project and choose "Reload Project".
6... Open all your "*.ascx.cs" files and make them inherit from the following custom UserControl class, instead of the System.Web.UI.UserControl class (you may need to locate parent classes to complete this step).
public class UserControl : System.Web.UI.UserControl
{
protected override void FrameworkInitialize()
{
base.FrameworkInitialize();
string content = String.Empty;
Stream stream = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetManifestResourceStream( GetType().FullName + ".ascx" );
using (StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(stream))
content = reader.ReadToEnd();
Control userControl = Page.ParseControl( content );
this.Controls.Add( userControl );
}
}
This base class will take care of loading and parsing the embedded ASCX file.
7... Finally, you may need to place ASCX files in subfolders so that their resource names (automatically determined by folder path) match the full type name of their associated class (plus ".ascx"). Assuming your root namespace matches your project name, then a class named "ProjectName.Namespace1.Namespace2.ClassName" will need its ASCX file in a subfolder "Namespace1\Namespace2", so it gets embedded with the name "ProjectName.Namespace1.Namespace2.ClassName.ascx".
And that's it! Once you compile the DLL and include it in another project, you can instantiate instances of your user controls using the "new" operator, like any other class. As always, your control will be "caught up" to the current page event once added as a child control to the page or another control on the page.
It is difcult to use user controls in this way due to the markup ascx file. If you want to create reusable control libraries your are much better off creating custom controls.
Another way would be to convert user control to the custom control. There is an nice article on MSDN: Turning an .ascx User Control into a Redistributable Custom Control which describes exactly how to do that. Here is the summary:
Write your user control as you normally would, typically using the Visual Studio designer.
Test it using a simple page before trying to deploy it.
Deploy the application to precompile it.
Grab the user control's assembly produced by the deployment step,
and you're essentially done: You have your custom control.
Finally, use your custom control in other apps the same way as you
always use custom controls.
Hope this helps.
I had to do it once and I followed this article
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/user-controls/EmbeddedUserControl.aspx
It's based on the possibility of mounting a virtual file system on different places (an assembly, database, etc)
There are quite a few articles out there on how to do exactly that:
http://www.nathanblevins.com/Articles/Compile-a-Web-User-Control-into-a-DLL-.Net-c-.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/davidebb/archive/2005/10/30/487160.aspx
I know this is old, but yes its possible.. I do it all the time, see https://kocubinski.wordpress.com/2013/05/06/compile-asp-net-webforms-ascx-usercontrols-into-assembly-for-re-use/

Telerik RadEditor image manager issues

We are using Telerik RadEditor control in our project and having some problems with its integration with our user documents storage engine. We've implemented custom content provider for Telerik image manager and it shows correct documents in dialog. But in doesn't switch between images while selection. You can see this on this picture. We've tested this behaviour on the blank ASP.NET page without any additional CSS or JS. Rad editor tag could be found below. Please help! Why do this could happen?
<telerik:RadEditor ID="radEditor" runat="server"
ToolbarMode="ShowOnFocus"
ToolsWidth="402"
EditModes="Design"
ToolsFile="~/RadEditor.xml"
Skin="Default">
<ImageManager ViewPaths="IMAGES" EnableImageEditor="False" ContentProviderTypeName="FileStorageContentProvider, App_CODE" />
</telerik:RadEditor>
Does it work as intended without your ContentProvider? I'm wondering if the logic in your contentprovider is causing the issue. I don't see anything out of the oridinary from your control properties.
Thanks to FiveTools! The issue was in content provider. Full path to item (including item name) should be passed to the 'location' parameter of the FileItem constructor. Otherwise selection would be broken.

Getting namespace name not found for ASP.net user control

So I'm having problems when I try to publish the website.
I'm in visual studio 2008 sp1.
I've got a bunch of user controls and on a few pages I'm using them programatically.
I've got a reference on the aspx page
<%# Reference Control="~/UserControls/Foo.ascx" %>
Then on the code behing I use
ASP.usercontrols_foo newFoo control = (ASP.usercontrols_foo)Page.LoadControl("~/UserControls/Foo.ascx");
If I navigate to the page it works fine, but when I goto publish the website I get a compile time error.
Argh, I'm bleeding development hours on this same issue. Does anyone have a solution to this ?
BTW: It builds if you uncheck "Allow this precompiled site to be updatable" (Right-click on the website, choose Property Pages, MSBuild Option)
But I need the site to be updatable.
I had this same problem - actually, in my case I could get it to compile and build my website, but it would blow up spectacularly when doing an automated build.
Try replacing your code as follows:
ASP.usercontrols_foo newFoo control = (ASP.usercontrols_foo)Page.LoadControl("~/UserControls/Foo.ascx");
with
USERCONTROLS_Foo newFoo control = (USERCONTROLS_Foo)Page.LoadControl("~/UserControls/Foo.ascx");
(Capitalization will be based on how you capitalized your directory name/control name - but in either case should highlight appropriately).
Specify a namespace for user control (see Dynamically Load a user control (ascx) in a asp.net website ).
I've found a solution for it. If i'll declare controls in user defined namespace, then I can use controls directly without using ASP or referencing it into aspx page.
It may have something to do with the specific type not being available. Can you change the control reference so the type and cast just use the base Control class:
Control control = Page.LoadControl("~/UserControls/Foo.ascx");
Yes, I can cast it to Control. But then I lose direct access to the methods on the usercontrol.
I know that I can access the methods by reflecting into the control, and I've successfully done that but that's far from ideal to access all the other user controls on the site.
Also, the follow-up error is that it cant find the usercontrols that on the markup
<%# Register src="CategoryRows.ascx" tagname="CategoryRows" tagprefix="abc" %>
<abc:CategoryRows ID="CategoryRows" runat="server" />
Note that I can run the site successfully both locally and on the server if I essentially XCopy the entire site (source code and all). But Publish fails.
Casting the user control may create many problem .my approach is to create a class (say control Class) put all the properties and method you need after casting and inherit this class from System.Web.UI.UserControl .Then in your user cotrol code file instead of System.Web.UI.UserControl user this control class .
now when ever you need casting cast with this class only . it will be light casting as well.
Please check:
Do you have any website.publishproj file?
If it exists, then delete and try again and publish code.

how to use codebeside in ASP.NET Web Application

I'm using VS2008 and want to create a web application (not a web site) with Code-Beside
but, the default mode of aspx is Code-Behind.
I have tried to change the CodeBehind=ClassFile.cs to CodeFile=ClassFile.cs in the header of aspx's <%#Page%> part, and deleted the aspx.designer.cs file,but if I added a server control to the page, the compiler is also send me an error of no member defined.the cs file is the orinal file of codebehind, it is partial class.
You don't want to delete aspx.designer.cs you want to delete the aspx.cs file, then place a similar file next to it and declare it as a partial class. designer.aspx.cs is still required to provide you direct access to controls placed within the page, rather than going through FindControl.
You definitely don't want to delete the .designer.cs file, as this is where the server control definitions will be placed.
In general the codebehind model is much better as it makes the code easier to find, use and maintain.

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