User control instead of include

  • Thread starter Thread starter Andrea Williams
  • Start date Start date
A

Andrea Williams

I'm trying to set up a user control and change some values from the aspx
page, but I keep running into trouble. What I really would like to do is be
able to set a Label.Text in the user control from an aspx page.

If I open up a static method to set the Label in the code-behind of the user
control(uc), then the code in the uc doesn't recognize that the label exists
(only if the method is a static (shared) method). If I set up a private
method, then the aspx page can't access the method, but then the uc does
recognize that the conrtol is there. Catch 22.

The old ASP way, I would just set the variable to the correct value on the
ASP page and the include would write it in a <%=SOMEVAR%>. How do I
accomplish this with user controls, or in this case, should I just resort to
an include file?

Andrea
 
Your second paragraph made my head hurt from trying to figure out what it
meant, so I'm just going to ignore that. Let's just stick to changing a
property of a User Control in a WebForm. This is all object-oriented, so
let's start by talking about what these Controls are, which is objects. The
Page is an object/class, as is the WebForm contained in the Page, as is any
User Control that you add to a WebForm. Because these are all classes, there
are hidden (protected/private) and accessible (public) members. In order to
access a property or field in the User Control, you must have a public
property or field in the User Control which exposes it (makes it accessible
to other classes).

Next, you need to grab a reference to the User Control to set that
property/field's value. This can be done using the Control.FindControl()
method, which takes a string as its argument, representing the id property
of the Control being sought. The FindControl() Method searches the Controls
Collection of a Control and finds the Child Control that has the id that is
passed, and returns a reference to that Control. It works only on the
immediate Children of a Control, so you need to identify the Control that
contains it. Most likely, this will be the WebForm (not the Page).

--
HTH,
Kevin Spencer
..Net Developer
Microsoft MVP
Big things are made up
of lots of little things.
 
Ok, at first I didn't understand your explaination, but a search on the
FindControl() method in the MSDN Lib got me thinking and experimenting, now
I understand.

THANKS! I am now able to do what I need! :-))

Andrea
 
Ok, another problem, FindControl only seems to work on Web Controls and not
HTML controls.... Am I missing something?

Andrea
 
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