List Controls on Datagrid will not show Selection after Postback

[Joanne]

Hi,

I have an "interesting" problem with UserControls in a datagrid and I'm
desperate for your help as I work alone and have no-one else to ask. It
is quite complicated but I'll try to keep it to a simple example ...

FormQuestionAnswer.ascx
-----------------------
I have a user Control that displays a question (from a questionnaire)
and its answer (as previously selected by a user). The question has a
list of possible answers in a CheckBoxList control. There is also an
"Other" option allowing the user to specify an answer as text. Note:
this is supposed to be a read-only control simply for display purposes,
I am not requiring any user input here.

QuestionnaireAnswerList.ascx
----------------------------
The parent UserControl contains a datagrid based on a particular
questionnaire with answers given by a particular user. Each row in the
datagrid displays an instance of the FormQuestionAnswer.ascx
UserControl, one for each question in the questionnaire.

When I first load the page the answers are all selected correctly. Any
text answers are displayed in labels.

However if, for any reason, the page is posted back (e.g. the
questionnaire is changed or the user is changed) then the list controls
no longer display any selections. Any text answers do still come
through as labels. Please note: this is NOT a ViewState issue as I am
loading up new controls afresh with new answers each time and the
selections are made according to data from my database.

I have been through the code a hundred times and traced the stack. Each
time the followng happens: the datagrid is bound, the
FormQuestionAnswer controls are created, the list controls are
databound and then last of all the selections are made. Nothing happens
to the controls after the selections are made (I was looking for a
subsequent DataBind() that would account for the selections being lost
but it doesn't happen).

I cannot find any significant difference in the stack trace when the
page is posted back which would account for this problem.

Does anyone have any ideas as to why this might be happening? Any
insight much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Joanne

 

[Guest]

Hi Joanne, sorry i'm a bit distracted by the news... but.. make sure all your
controls are loaded before the page loads viewstate and post data. This is a
particular issue if you are dynamically loading controls into the page. e.g
create your controls in page.init event HTH jd

 

[Joanne]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. I'm not quite sure if you are saying it is good
or bad to create controls in the page.init event. In any case that is
not what I've been doing so far.

In the FormQuestionAnswer.ascx usercontrol, all the standard controls I
could possibly need are already declared and visible on the page. At
page_load I hide them all, then find out what sort of answer is
required and make visible the appropriate answer control (e.g. the
CheckBoxList), then select the appropriate answers ( e.g. select some
of the checkboxes). I have set public properties QuestionID and UserID
for the UserControl to determine the question and answer required.

The UserControl gets created when the datagrid in the parent page is
databound. The html for the datagrid looks something like this ...

QuestionnaireAnswerList.ascx
----------------------------
<asp:datagrid id="dg" runat="server" >
<Columns>
<asp:TemplateColumn HeaderText="">
<ItemTemplate>
<uc1:FormQuestionAnswer id="ctlFormQuestionAnswer1" runat="server"
UserID='<%# Convert.ToInt32(DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem,
"UserID")) %>' QuestionID='<%#
Convert.ToInt32(DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem, "QuestionID")) %>'>
</uc1:FormQuestionAnswer>
</ItemTemplate>
</asp:TemplateColumn>
</Columns>
</asp:datagrid>

In the FormQuestionAnswer.ascx usercontrol when the public property,
QuestionID, is set, the call to make the appropriate selections is
made. The c# code looks something like this ...

FormQuestionAnswer.ascx
-----------------------
//passed in
public int QuestionID
{
get
{
return mintQuestionID;
}
set
{
mintQuestionID = value;
//Whenever QuestionID changed, set up new question
SetUpNewQuestion();
}
}

public void SetUpNewQuestion()
{
//First set all the controls to hide
HideQuestionControls();

//What Answer type do we want?
switch(CurrentFormQuestion.AnswerTypeID)
{
case lkAnswerType.gintCurrencyID:
{
SetUpCurrencyAnswer(map);
break;
}
// more cases here ...
case lkAnswerType.gintListID:
{
SetUpCheckBoxListAnswer();
break;
}
}

---***---
SetUpCheckBoxListAnswer() binds the possible answers to the
checkBoxList and makes it visible. The answers given by the user are
then selected.

Note: The Page_Load() method of FormQuestionAnswer.ascx also calls
SetUpNewQuestion() the first time it is run.

FormQuestionAnswer.ascx
-----------------------
private void Page_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
//Clear the SessionObject vars
if(!IsPostBack)
{
//Initially, set up the question
//next time, wait for event to be fired
SetUpNewQuestion();
}
}

---***---
This means that SetUpNewQuestion() gets called at least twice the first
time, but when I took it away, it didn't work. My investigations also
showed that if I removed the if(!IsPostBack) condition and allowed the
SetUpNewQuestion() event to be called again on postback, it still
resulted in the same problem - list items not being selected.

Driving me mad, but thanks very much for any help!
Joanne