A common requirement in data entry or registration form pages is to collect user data across a series of pages. For instance, a bank account application might require personal information from one or more applications, business information, financial information, etc., each on separate forms. Or an ecommerce application my collect information about billing address, shipping address, and payment on separate forms. In ASP.NET 1.x, this can be done, but there is not built-in support for it, so a lot of code must be written to support updating the page state, or many separate forms must be written and state managed between them. It's messy.
The Wizard web control is designed to make these scenarios easier. The wizard control allows the developer to create templated "steps" within the control, and manages the state throughout the steps. Validation within individual steps can be completed without incomplete steps' RequiredFieldValidators firing (as is a problem in 1.x). Users can navigate forward, backward, or jump to a specific step within the wizard.
At design time, it's very easy to manipulate the Wizard and its step templates, as this screenshot demonstrates:
Here's an example of a very simple Wizard control in action, using the March 2004 Preview build of VS2005:
<%@
page language="C#" %>
<
script runat="server">
void Wizard1_FinishButtonClick (object sender, WizardNavigationEventArgs e)
{
Response.Write ("Finish clicked!");
}
</
script>
<
html>
<
head runat="server">
<title>Untitled Page</title>
</
head>
<
body>
<form id="form1" runat="server">
<div>
<asp:Wizard ID="Wizard1" Runat="server" SideBarEnabled="true" OnFinishButtonClick="Wizard1_FinishButtonClick">
<WizardSteps>
<asp:WizardStep Runat="server" Title="Step 1">
This is content for STEP 1.
</asp:WizardStep>
<asp:WizardStep Runat="server" Title="Step 2">
This is content for STEP 2.
</asp:WizardStep>
</WizardSteps>
</asp:Wizard>
</div>
</form>
</
body>
</
html>
