Published:
03 Aug 2006
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Abstract
In this article Tom examines how to recurse through a control tree using ASP.NET 2.0. |
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by Tom Blanchard
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| Introduction |
Some people may have already read Steve Orr's Article on control tree
recursion, and may be wondering what differences there may be when using the
.NET Framework 2.0. When using the .NET Framework 2.0, one may throw all kinds
of monkey wrenches into the situation.
One of these would be using a "Master Page". When
using a "Master Page", you will only see one control, which will be
the master page that your current page is inheriting. This creates a problem,
when trying to access a control that lies within the page itself. When creating
a page without utilizing a master page, you will also find it difficult to find
your controls, if you loop through the "Page.Controls" collection. This
particular issue has an easy fix. The fix is to reference the Form within the
page and loop through its controls.
Listing 1
Control oFrm = Page.Form;
//loop through panel controls
foreach (Control oCtl in oFrm.Controls)
{
//find your control and do with it as you like here
.....
} |
| Creating your Master Page |
So now let's create a page that has a "Master
Page" and get the controls within it.
Firstly, create a new solution. Then Create a "Master
Page". In the "Master Page", create a table with two content
panels. We are going to create a page that would have links on the left and
content displayed within panels on the right.
Listing 2
<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" style="width:100%;vertical-align:top">
<tr>
<td id="LeftNav" style="vertical-align:top">
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder ID="ContentPlaceHolder1" runat="server">
</asp:ContentPlaceHolder>
</td>
<td id="Content">
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder ID="ContentPlaceHolder2" runat="server">
</asp:ContentPlaceHolder>
</td>
</tr>
</table> |
| Creating Your WebForm |
Ok, now add a new "Web Content Form", and select
the "Master Page" that you just created. In your "Web Content
Form", you should see the two "ContentPlaceHolder" controls from
the "Master Page".
Within the 1st "ContentPlaceHolder" put a table
that has a few rows with some link button controls like this:
Listing 3
<asp:Content ID="Content1" ContentPlaceHolderID="ContentPlaceHolder1" runat="server">
<table style="width:160px;vertical-align:top;">
<tr>
<td style="vertical-align:top">
<asp:LinkButton ID="lb1" runat="server" OnClick="lbPanelShow_Click">lb1</asp:LinkButton>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<asp:LinkButton ID="lb2" runat="server" OnClick="lbPanelShow_Click"> lb2 </asp:LinkButton>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<asp:LinkButton ID="lb3" runat="server" OnClick="lbPanelShow_Click"> lb3</asp:LinkButton>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<asp:LinkButton ID="lb4" runat="server" OnClick="lbPanelShow_Click"> lb4</asp:LinkButton>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</asp:Content> We will work on the lbPanelShow_Click method when we get to
the code behind.
Now we will add the section to the right where our content
is going to go. We will add a panel for each of our link buttons:
Listing 4
<asp:Content ID="Content2" ContentPlaceHolderID="ContentPlaceHolder2" runat="server">
<table style="width:640px">
<tr>
<td>
<asp:Panel ID="pnl1" runat="server" Visible="false">
Panel 1
</asp:Panel>
<asp:Panel ID="pnl2" runat="server" Visible="false">
Panel 2
</asp:Panel>
<asp:Panel ID="pnl3" runat="server" Visible="false">
Panel 3
</asp:Panel>
<asp:Panel ID="pnl4" runat="server" Visible="false">
Panel 4
</asp:Panel>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</asp:Content> Ok, now that we have our UI Together, we can go to the code
behind.
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| Understanding the Code |
In the code behind, we need to add the lbPanelShow_Click
which will handle the OnClick of all of the "LinkButtons" that we
added, because we told it to earlier.
Listing 5
protected void lbPanelShow_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
// your sender would be the link button that you clicked.
LinkButton oLbl = (LinkButton)sender;
// now get the form
Control oFrm = Page.Form;
//loop through the Forms control collection
foreach (Control oCtl in oFrm.Controls)
{
// you will find the place holder controls here
if (oCtl is ContentPlaceHolder)
{
// loop through the placeholder's control collection
foreach(Control oCtl in ctl.Controls) {
// we only want to access our panel controls
if (ctl1 is Panel)
{
switch (oLbl.Text) {
case "lb1":
if (ctl1.ID == "pnl1")
{
ctl1.Visible = true;
}
else
{
ctl1.Visible = false;
}
break;
case "lb2":
if (ctl1.ID == "pnl2")
{
ctl1.Visible = true;
}
else
{
ctl1.Visible = false;
}
break;
case "lb3":
if (ctl1.ID == "pnl3")
{
ctl1.Visible = true;
}
else
{
ctl1.Visible = false;
}
break;
case "lb4":
if (ctl1.ID == "pnl4")
{
ctl1.Visible = true;
}
else
{
ctl1.Visible = false;
}
break;
default:
break;
}
}
}
}
} //end foreach loop
}// end procedure lbPanelShow_ClickNow that you have done that, try it out. You will see it
performs rather nicely.
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| Summary |
In this article, you have learned how to recurse through the
controls in an ASP.NET 2.0 WebForm using Master Pages.
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User Comments
Title:
very useful
Name:
shubha
Date:
2008-09-12 7:09:52 AM
Comment:
this article was very useful for me. Actually i was struggling to find, how to find out the type of the control in a panel. Its a very simple solution to use 'is' operator. But i struggled a lot before finding this article..
thank u Tom Blanchard
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Title:
Very useful.
Name:
Dipal Bhavsar
Date:
2008-06-25 1:24:16 AM
Comment:
Hi, this is very useful to me...
Dipal Bhavsar
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Title:
check the link from the article in the first paragraph
Name:
TB
Date:
2008-02-19 1:22:29 PM
Comment:
It is just basically is an updated way to go through something similar in the 2.0 framework.
It is more of looping than recursing.
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Title:
Misleading
Name:
none
Date:
2008-02-19 12:48:02 PM
Comment:
This is nice and all, but there isn't anything recursive about it.
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Title:
Just what I was looking for!
Name:
Will Asrari
Date:
2007-06-14 11:48:50 PM
Comment:
Sweet. Thanks!
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Title:
Good Job
Name:
Tom Blanchard
Date:
2006-10-06 2:26:27 PM
Comment:
Excellent Job Rizwan! I didn't even go into HTMLControls, but glad it was easy for you to adapt.
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Title:
Rizwan Gulamhussein
Name:
Control Tree Recursion Using ASP.NET 2.0
Date:
2006-10-06 1:48:45 AM
Comment:
Sorry, by the way, I forgot to mention that your code as well as my own code snippet works.
Thanks.
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Title:
Control Tree Recursion Using ASP.NET 2.0
Name:
Rizwan Gulamhussein
Date:
2006-10-06 1:44:11 AM
Comment:
Great article Tom.
In my code, I have a single gridview that contains HTML radio buttons and HTML checkboxes. Although intellisense displays the name of the gridview, the debugger complained.
What I did was this:
GridView targetGrid = (GridView)FindControl("TargetSegmentGridView");
foreach (GridViewRow row in targetGrid.Rows)
{
etc.
Happy coding! :)
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Title:
Error in text
Name:
Tom Blanchard
Date:
2006-08-07 11:43:56 AM
Comment:
foreach(Control oCtl in ctl.Controls) {
Should read foreach(Control ctl1 in oCtl.Controls) {
Some of this was copied from actual code that I have used and some of the names were changed to protect the innocent, however, I apparently missed something.
My apologies.
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Title:
error
Name:
interesting
Date:
2006-08-07 11:25:12 AM
Comment:
when I run this, i get the following error
: CS0103: The name 'ctl' does not exist in the current context
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