Design Time Rendering User Control?

[Bill Cohagan]

I've created a user control (not a custom control) consisting of a table
with a single row containing three cells, each cell containing a button.
Following is the code for this user control.

<%@ Control Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true"
CodeFile="NewEditDeleteButtons.ascx.cs"
Inherits="UserControls_NewEditDeleteButtons" %>
<%@ Register TagPrefix="ctrl" Namespace="IDWeb.Web.Control"
Assembly="IDWeb.Web" %>
<asp:Table ID="AEDBTable" runat="server">
<asp:TableRow runat="server">
<asp:TableCell ID="TableCell26" runat="server" CssClass="data">
<ctrl:Button ID="btnNew" runat="server" Text="+"
OnClick="btnNew_Click"/>
</asp:TableCell>
<asp:TableCell ID="TableCell1" runat="server" CssClass="data">
<ctrl:Button ID="btnEdit" runat="server" Text="e"
OnClick="btnEdit_Click"/>
</asp:TableCell>
<asp:TableCell ID="TableCell27" runat="server" CssClass="data">
<ctrl:Button ID="btnDelete" runat="server" Text="X"
OnClick="btnDelete_Click"/>
</asp:TableCell>
</asp:TableRow>
</asp:Table>

This user control works fine at runtime and renders as expected. In design
view however the page containing the NewEditDeleteButtons tag doesn't show
anything for this control. Is there a way I can get it to render in the
designer?

TIA,
Bill Cohagan

 

[Riki]

I've created a user control (not a custom control) consisting of a
table with a single row containing three cells, each cell containing
a button. Following is the code for this user control.

<%@ Control Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true"
CodeFile="NewEditDeleteButtons.ascx.cs"
Inherits="UserControls_NewEditDeleteButtons" %>
<%@ Register TagPrefix="ctrl" Namespace="IDWeb.Web.Control"
Assembly="IDWeb.Web" %>
<asp:Table ID="AEDBTable" runat="server">
<asp:TableRow runat="server">
<asp:TableCell ID="TableCell26" runat="server" CssClass="data">
<ctrl:Button ID="btnNew" runat="server" Text="+"
OnClick="btnNew_Click"/>
</asp:TableCell>
<asp:TableCell ID="TableCell1" runat="server" CssClass="data">
<ctrl:Button ID="btnEdit" runat="server" Text="e"
OnClick="btnEdit_Click"/>
</asp:TableCell>
<asp:TableCell ID="TableCell27" runat="server" CssClass="data">
<ctrl:Button ID="btnDelete" runat="server" Text="X"
OnClick="btnDelete_Click"/>
</asp:TableCell>
</asp:TableRow>
</asp:Table>

This user control works fine at runtime and renders as expected. In
design view however the page containing the NewEditDeleteButtons tag
doesn't show anything for this control. Is there a way I can get it
to render in the designer?

TIA,
Bill Cohagan

I'm suspecting the custom button controls that you're using.

Try replacing the custom buttons with standard buttons, and see if that
helps.

 

[Bill Cohagan]

Riki
Thank, but I already tried that. Should have mentioned that in my
posting. FWIW, the custom button (at this point) is trivial anyway:

namespace IDWeb.Web.Control
{
public class Button : System.Web.UI.WebControls.Button
{
public Button()
{
}
}
}

 

[Walter Wang [MSFT]]

Hi Bill,

Thank you for your post.

Depending on which ASP.NET version you are using, the answer to your
question varies:

1) If you are using ASP.NET 1.1, the UserControl's design-time rendering is
very limited and the behavior you're experiencing is expected.

2) If you are using ASP.NET 2.0, the UserControl's design-time rendering
should reflect the controls it's using. However, if the custom control
(IDWeb.Web.Control.Button) is placed under the website's App_Code folder,
due to ASP.NET 2.0 compilation model, it will show the custom control on
UserControl successfully, but will not show correctly if the UserControl is
used in WebForm or another UserControl again. You need to place the custom
control in a separate Class Library to get correct design-time rendering.

Hope this helps. Please feel free to post here if anything is unclear.

Regards,
Walter Wang ([email protected], remove 'online.')
Microsoft Online Community Support

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[Bill Cohagan]

Walter
Thanks for the suggestions; however the button custom control is already
in a dll. I'm using ASP.Net 2.0. Following is the code for the user control
as well:

<%@ Control Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true"
CodeFile="NewEditDeleteButtons.ascx.cs"
Inherits="UserControls_NewEditDeleteButtons" %>
<%@ Register TagPrefix="ctrl" Namespace="IDWeb.Web.Control"
Assembly="IDWeb.Web" %>
<asp:Table ID="AEDBTable" runat="server">
<asp:TableRow runat="server">
<asp:TableCell ID="TableCell26" runat="server" CssClass="data">
<ctrl:Button ID="btnNew" runat="server" Text="+"
OnClick="btnNew_Click"/>
</asp:TableCell>
<asp:TableCell ID="TableCell1" runat="server" CssClass="data">
<ctrl:Button ID="btnEdit" runat="server" Text="e"
OnClick="btnEdit_Click"/>
</asp:TableCell>
<asp:TableCell ID="TableCell27" runat="server" CssClass="data">
<ctrl:Button ID="btnDelete" runat="server" Text="X"
OnClick="btnDelete_Click"/>
</asp:TableCell>
</asp:TableRow>
</asp:Table>

Note the Register element referencing the IDWeb.Web assembly. If I
understand your response correctly, you're saying this should work as-is,
right?

Regards,
Bill

 

[Walter Wang [MSFT]]

Sorry for the typo in previous reply, should be "inherits from WebControl".

Regards,
Walter Wang ([email protected], remove 'online.')
Microsoft Online Community Support

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[Bill Cohagan]

Walter
Thanks for the suggestions; however your solution suggests that I should
*not* be having this problem since my custom controls are *not* placed in
App_Code. In any case, for test purposes, I changes my code to use
asp:Button rather than the custom control ctrl:Button and the problem is
still there; i.e., the web control does NOT render at all in designer.

Any other ideas?

Thanks again,
Bill

 

[Walter Wang [MSFT]]

Hi Bill,

Thank you for your update.

Have you tried my sample project in my second post in this thread? You may
have to use Outlook Express to download the attachment. If you have
difficulty to download the attachment, email me and I will send the project
to you.

We're actually handling two questions here:
1) Design-time rendering of custom control

You can find more information here:

#Adding Design-Time Support to ASP.NET Controls
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnaspp/html
/ASPNet-AddDesignTimeSupport.asp

Normally, when you inherit from a control that is already associated with a
control designer, you don't have to create a designer.

If you're building a control from scratch or building a composite control,
you may have to create a control designer and associate it with the control.

2) Design-time rendering of user control

Before Visual Studio 2005, the design-time rendering of user control is
very limited. However, in Visual Studio 2005, it should render correctly.
Please test the sample project and tell me the result, thanks!

Or you can send me your project which can reproduce the issue so that we
can check whether or not this is environment specific.

Regards,
Walter Wang ([email protected], remove 'online.')
Microsoft Online Community Support

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[Bill Cohagan]

Walter
I will try your sample project and report back.

Thanks,
Bill

 

[Bill Cohagan]

Walter
Please examine my code again. Your screenshot shows that the control does
NOT render when it is inside a table cell. See the small empty box below
the row containing the 3 buttons? The instance that DOES render is the one
before the one in the table cell.

Regards,
Bill

 

[Walter Wang [MSFT]]

Hi Bill,

Thanks. I overlooked that table cell.

I'm now able to reproduce the issue you described. Creating a very simple
UserControl with an <asp:Button> and use this UserControl inside
<asp:Table><asp:TableRow><asp:TableCell> will not render the UserControl
correctly.

I'm currently searching in internal database and will consult with product
team on this. In the meanwhile, you can submit your feedback here:

http://connect.microsoft.com/site/sitehome.aspx?SiteID=210

Thanks for your help!

Regards,
Walter Wang ([email protected], remove 'online.')
Microsoft Online Community Support

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that others may learn and benefit from your issue.
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[Bill Cohagan]

Walter
Thanks. Please let me know what you find out. I'd appreciate it if you
would email me directly (using the email provided with my alias
registration). I have submitted feedback as you suggested, referencing this
newsgroup thread for details.

Bill

 

[Walter Wang [MSFT]]

Hi Bill,

I've consulted our product team on this issue.

The cause of this issue is that child controls use their runtime rendering
in the designer since they don't even have designers created. Only
top-level controls have designers and thus have specialized design-time
rendering.

For now, do you think following workaround will work for you?

<table runat="server" id="test2">
<tr runat="server" id="row2">
<td id="cell2" runat="server">
<uc:NewEditDeleteButtons ID="NewEditDeleteButtons2"
runat="server" />
</td>
</tr>
</table>

Use this notation, you can still have access to the table/row/cell in
server-side code.

Thank you for your feedback, it will certainly help us to make our products
better!


Regards,
Walter Wang ([email protected], remove 'online.')
Microsoft Online Community Support

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that others may learn and benefit from your issue.
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[Bill Cohagan]

Walter
Thanks for looking into this. I'm afraid however that I don't understand
the explanation provided. It seems from what you say that the child controls
(buttons in my case) should use their runtime rendering in the designer.
Obviously that's not happening. As for the "workaround", I believe that's
exactly the code I'm already using and server side access to the control
hasn't been a problem. The problem is that it is difficult to layout a web
form using many of these user controls when they don't appear in the
designer.

Does the product team consider this a defect; i.e., something that will be
fixed in the future? Your response doesn't seem to address this at all. In
any case, thanks again for following up.

Regards,
Bill

 

[Walter Wang [MSFT]]

Hi Bill,

Thank you for your quick reply.

I'll do further researching on this issue and will get back to you as soon
as possible. Thank you for for patience and understanding.

In my test, the workaround using <table>, <td> rather than <asp:table>,
<asp:TableCell> correctly renders the UserControl at design-time. Do you
mean that this workaround didn't render the UserControl either?



Regards,
Walter Wang ([email protected], remove 'online.')
Microsoft Online Community Support

==================================================
When responding to posts, please "Reply to Group" via your newsreader so
that others may learn and benefit from your issue.
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[Bill Cohagan]

Walter
Sorry, I misunderstood your workaround, not noticing the change from
asp:table to table. I'll give that a try and let you know.

Bill

 

[Bill Cohagan]

Walter
I've now tried the workaround. Unfortunately it doesn't work for me
because the use control itself is being placed within an asp:Tablecell
element on the page where I'm using it. So simply using the table element
rather than the asp:table element within the control definition is not
sufficient in my case. Modifying the code that *uses* the user control is
not a feasible solution since I have little or no control over that code.

Please let me know what else you find out about this problem.

Thanks,
Bill

 

[Walter Wang [MSFT]]

Hi Bill,

I've consulted with product team and confirmed this is a limitation of
Visual Studio 2005. For those who are monitoring this thread, here's the
summary of this issue:


Symptom
=======
UserControl will not render correctly at design time if it's used inside
<asp:TableCell> tag.

Reproduce Steps
===============
1) Create a UserControl, add a <asp:Button>
2) Use it on a WebForm inside <asp:TableCell> tag:

<asp:Table ID="table1" runat="server">
<asp:TableRow ID="row1" runat="server">
<asp:TableCell ID="cell1" runat="server">
<uc1:WebUserControl ID="WebUserControl2" runat="server" />
</asp:TableCell>
</asp:TableRow>
</asp:Table>

3) Switch to design time of the WebForm, the UserControl is not rendered
correctly.


Sorry for the inconvenience of this issue. Bill, thank you for your
feedback. I believe this will help us to make our products much better.



Regards,
Walter Wang ([email protected], remove 'online.')
Microsoft Online Community Support

==================================================
When responding to posts, please "Reply to Group" via your newsreader so
that others may learn and benefit from your issue.
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This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.