Best way to implement Google Custom Search on an aspx page - asp.net

Google custom search code is provided as a form tag. However, Asp.net only allows a single form tag on a page. What is the best way to implement their code so you can include it on an aspx page (say as part of a Masterpage or navigation element).

You can have multiple form tags on an ASP.NET page. The limitation is on server-side (runat="server") form tags.
You can implement two form tags (or more) as long as only one has the runat="server" attribute and one is not contained in the other. Example:
<body>
<form action="http://www.google.com/cse" id="cse-search-box"> ... </form>
<form runat="server" id="aspNetform"> ... </form>
<body>

You may be able to have multiple form tags, but note that they cannot be nested. You'll run into all kinds of weirdness in that scenario (e.g., I've seen cases where the opening tag for the nested form apparently gets ignored and then its closing tag winds up closing the "parent" form out).

You'll need to remove the form tag and use javascript send the query. Have a look at
http://my6solutions.com/post/2009/04/19/Fixing-Google-Custom-Search-nested-form-tags-in-asp-net-pages.aspx
I have included the before and after code as well. So you can see what I've done to integrate it with blogengine .net.

You could use Javascript:
<input name="Query" type="text" class="searchField" id="Query" value="Search" size="15" onfocus="if(this.value == 'Search') { this.value = ''; }" onblur="if(this.value == '') { this.value = 'Search'; }" onkeydown="var event = event || window.event; var key = event.which || event.keyCode; if(key==13) window.open('http://www.google.com/search?q=' + getElementById('Query').value ); " /><input name="" type="button" class="searchButton" value="go" onclick="window.open('http://www.google.com/search?q=' + getElementById('Query').value );" />

Related

Form Submission on Enter Press

I have a form in my ASP .NET project that takes the users input, and appends it to a URL to search a wiki. The form works perfectly when you enter in a search term, and click the 'search' button, however when you type into the input box and hit enter, the page refreshes and the box clears.
my html
<form>
<label id="sideBarLabel"> Services
<input type="text" placeholder="Search Wiki: e.g. E911" name="queryString" id="query-string" />
</label>
Search Wiki
</form>
my js
function searchWiki(){
var siteQuery = $('#query-string').val();
window.location.href = "/dosearchsite.action?queryString=" + siteQuery;
}
Can anyone help ?
Your searchWiki() js method is only called when the evenement onclick is raised on your button, but not when your form is submitted.
There is several ways to achieve what you want:
Add a js method to catch the onsubmit event of your form:
$("form").on("submit", searchWiki());
Or add a tag on your form:
<form onsubmit="searchWiki()">
Or specify the action attribute on your form:
<form action="/dosearchsite.action">
Note that in ASP.NET, the ModelBinder will link your form inputs to your controller action parameters, using the name attribute of the inputs. That means that you should not specify them in the url yourself.
You should also declare your form using Html.BeginForm or Ajax.BeginForm if you want your form to be submitted by ajax.
#Html.BeginForm("ActionName", "ControllerName")
{
<label id="sideBarLabel">Services
<input type="text" placeholder="Search Wiki: e.g. E911" name="queryString" id="query-string" />
</label>
<input type="submit" class="button" value="Search Wiki"/>
}
This will call searchWiki when you press enter.
$('#query-string').keypress(function(event) {
if (event.keyCode == 13) {
searchWiki();
event.preventDefault();}});

Form is not created inside while loop

I am newbie to asp.net . I learned that only one server side form could be used on a page. So.. due to functional requirement I have to create multiple forms . I did it with normal forms (without runat="server" tag . I used while loop to create form. Counter is initialized to zero & incremented to a particular length. But after running page I found by viewing source on browser that first form tag was not there (that is made on counter value 0) and other forms were there (counter value greater than zero). For reference I am including my code
<%
int length = 0;
while (postListLength > length)
{ %>
<div class="View-Posts">
<div class="View-Post-Content">
<%=postList[length].PostContent %><br />
<form method="post" action="CompletePost.aspx">
<input type="hidden" name="RequestedId" value="<%=postList[length].PostId.ToString()%>" />
<input type="submit" value="See More" />
</form>
</div>
</div>
<%
length++;
}
%>
Then I made another asp page without loop only one form there also I got the same problem.
But the inner content of form is there like textbox etc. only form tag is not there for first form
Any help will be appreciable

How to Create form on the fly in asp.net

i have requirement to create form on the fly like html below
<form action='http://www.example.com' method='POST' name=''>
<input type='HIDDEN' name='' value=''>
<input type='HIDDEN' name='Username' value=''>
<input type='HIDDEN' name='password' value=''>
<input type='SUBMIT' value='Go'>
</form>
to the form once this form created it should automatically get post on page load in asp.net.
This is can not actually post on PageLoad. You can post it automatically only using javascript after you have render the html page.
This article have a source code on how to create this form dynamically on asp.net and automatically make the post. Is done exactly what you ask for.
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/37539/Redirect-and-POST-in-ASP-NET
From the previous answer by #Aristos, I have checked the link and I have learnt too. You can check it out
You can also use javascript to post the form when the page load
...your forms tags here
<script type="text/javascript">
document.forms['form_name'].submit();
</script>
</body>
</html>
Just make sure the script is the last element in the DOM or use jQuery
$(document).ready(function()
{
document.forms['form_name'].submit();
}
);

Error occurs when jQuery processing a form is inside another form

I am writing a form using jQuery and encounter some difficulties.
My form works fine in static page (html).
However, when I use the form in dynamic page(aspx), the form does not behave correctly.
I cannot append items to the form and call the form.serialize function.
I think the error occurs when a form is inside another form (.aspx code needs to enclosed by a form tag).
What should I do?
Let me give a simplified version of my code:
<form name="Form1" method="post" id="Form1">
some content
<form name="form_inside">
<input name="fname" type="text" />
</form>
</form>
jQuery code:
$("#form_inside").append($("<input type='text' name='lname'>"));
When the user submits,
$("#form_inside").serialize();
// it should return fname=inputfname&lname=inputlname
I want to append element to "form_inside" and serialize the form "form_inside".
The form "Form1" is required by the aspx and I cannot remove it.
Could you just serialize the fields inside Form1?
I don't know anything about ASP, but it seems that you're not doing a straightforward "submit" anyway - so does it really matter if the fields aren't within their own separate form?
You could possibly group the fields you're interested in within a <div> or something, e.g.:
<div id="my-interesting-fields">
...
</div>
then substitute #form-inside with #my-interesting-fields where appropriate - is that helpful at all?
Edit
OK, a quick glance at the jQuery code suggests that serialize() depends on the form's elements member.
I suppose you could hack this in a couple of different ways:
Copy all elements from #my-interesting-fields into a temporary <form> that you dynamically create outside Form1, then call serialize() on that. Something like:
$("#Form1").after("<form id='tmp-form'></form>").
append("#my-interesting-fields input");
$("tmp-form").serialize();
Or, create an elements member on #my-interesting-fields, e.g.
$("#my-interesting-fields").elements = $("#my-interesting-fields input");
$("#my-interesting-fields").serialize();
I haven't tried either of these, but that might give you a couple of ideas. Not that I would necessarily recommend either of them :)
Because you can't have nested <form> tags you'll need to close off the standard dotnet form tag like below:
<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function() {
$("#form_inside").append($("<input type='text' name='lname'>"));
$("#submitBtn").click(function() {function() {
var obj = $("#form_inside *");
var values = new Array();
obj.each(function(i,obj1) {
if (obj1.name && !obj1.disabled && obj1.value) {
values.push(obj1);
};
});
alert(jQuery.param(values));
}); });
});
</script>
<form id="form1" runat="server">
<div>
<div id="form_inside" name="form_inside"> <input name="fname" type="text" /><input type="button" id="submitBtn" /></div>
</div>
</form>
jQuery.param on a array of form elements will give you the same results as .serialize()
so you get all elements in div $("#form_inside *) then filter for elements then on the result jQuery.param will give you exactly what you need

Using embedded standard HTML forms with ASP.NET

I have a standard aspx page with which I need to add another standard HTML form into and have it submit to another location (external site), however whenever I press the submit button the page seems to do a post back rather than using the sub-forms action url.
A mock up of what the form relationships is below. Note in the real deployment the form will be part of a content area of a master page layout, so the form needs to submit independantly from the master page form.
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" >
<head runat="server">
<title>Untitled Page</title>
</head>
<body>
<form id="form1" runat="server">
<div>
<form id="subscribe_form" method="post" action="https://someothersite.com" name="em_subscribe_form" >
<input type="text" id="field1" name="field1" />
<input id="submitsubform" type="submit" value="Submit" />
</form>
</div>
</form>
</body>
</html>
It's an interesting problem. Ideally you only want the 1 form tag on the page as other users have mentioned. Potentially you could post the data via javascript without having 2 form tags.
Example taken from here, modified for your needs. Not 100% sure if this will work for you but I think this is how you'll have to approach it.
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" >
<head runat="server">
<title>Untitled Page</title>
<script type="text/javascript">
function postdata()
{
var fieldValue = document.getElementById("field1").value;
postwith("http://someothersite.com",{field1:fieldValue});
}
function postwith (to,p) {
var myForm = document.createElement("form");
myForm.method="post" ;
myForm.action = to ;
for (var k in p) {
var myInput = document.createElement("input") ;
myInput.setAttribute("name", k) ;
myInput.setAttribute("value", p[k]);
myForm.appendChild(myInput) ;
}
document.body.appendChild(myForm) ;
myForm.submit() ;
document.body.removeChild(myForm) ;
}
</script>
</head>
<body>
<form id="form1" runat="server">
<div>
<div>
<input type="text" id="field1" name="field1" />
<asp:Button ID="btnSubmitSubscribe" runat="server" Text="Submit" OnClientClick="postdata(); return false;" />
</div>
</div>
</form>
</body>
</html>
If javascript is not a viable option - you can use .Net's HttpWebRequest object to create the post call in code behind. Would look something like this in the code behind (assuming your text field is an asp textbox:
private void OnSubscribeClick(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
string field1 = Field1.Text;
ASCIIEncoding encoding=new ASCIIEncoding();
string postData="field1="+field1 ;
byte[] data = encoding.GetBytes(postData);
// Prepare web request...
HttpWebRequest myRequest =
(HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create("http://someotherwebsite/");
myRequest.Method = "POST";
myRequest.ContentType="application/x-www-form-urlencoded";
myRequest.ContentLength = data.Length;
Stream newStream=myRequest.GetRequestStream();
// Send the data.
newStream.Write(data,0,data.Length);
newStream.Close();
}
If you add an ASP.NET button to the form, and set its PostBackUrl property to the external site, then all the form data will be posted to that URL.
There is a very nice tricky solution for this problem.
You can insert a </form> tag before your <form> to close the asp.net form which causes the problem. Do not forget to add a <form> tag after your html form. It may cause the editor to give you an exception, but do not worry, it will work.
Nested forms are not possible in HTML according to the W3C. You can achieve your intended result using JavaScript or with jQuery as explained by Peter on a blog called My Thoughts.
In my experience, Appetere Web Solutions has the best solution. Simple and elegant...and it's not a hack. Use the PostBackUrl.
I just tried it and everything works as expected. I didn't want to use Javascript because I didn't want to include it in my Master Page for every page that uses it.
I had the same situation as Ross - except that my input types were all of the "hidden" varitey.
Cowgod's answer got me thinking about nested forms within my .aspx page. I ended up "un-nesting" my 2nd form OUT of the main .aspx form ( ) and placed it (along with my js script tags) just under the body tag - but before the main .aspx form tag.
Suddenly, everything was submitting as it was supposed to. Is this a hack?
ASP.NET allows you to have multiple forms on one page, but only one can be runat=server. However I don't think you can nest forms at all.
You might have to make a new master page, one without a form tag on it so the form will work on that one page only. This is not a good solution, unless you can place the form outside the master pages' form, and use javascript to submit the second form, but that's hardly better. There really is no good solution for what you are trying to achieve, and if so I'd like to hear it. I don't think you can do a POST call from a code-behind, can you? I'm sure there's some way. But that's probably the only solution: from code.

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