.NET Advisor Blog

Use Multiple Forms in an ASP.NET page

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

ASP.NET has a great setup where a page posts back to itself and all controls are contained in one form. However, there are times when it's useful to have multiple forms setup on a page each with their own inputs and url to post to. Unfortunately, aspx pages make it difficult to accomplish which you are certainly aware given the fact that you found this article. Follow me here as I show you a solution I've come to use quite a lot with my applications.

Dynamically Add Controls to a Web Page

Fri, 30 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Ever try to dynamically add a control to a web page only to find it's events don't work correctly, property settings don't persist across postbacks or even worse the control disappears after a postback? Dynamic controls can be a bit frustrating when you first learn how to use them. Rest assured once you learn a few key points you'll be able to get them to function just as good as declared controls.

Implicit vs. Explicit Implementation of an Interface

Thu, 29 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Have you ever wondered how to implement an interface and what the difference is between implementing it implicitly versus explicity? I did a lot of searching on the topic myself before really getting a firm grasp on the differences. Let me explain in this article how to go about using the two methods.

Access Controls Contained in a MasterPage through a Content Page

Wed, 07 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

MasterPages are a great feature that's new to the .NET 2.0 framework. They simplify the process of applying a look and feel across multiple pages in your ASP.NET application. Before these came about making a change that would apply to all your pages was quite a task as you had to go around to each page and make the change manually. Not only was it inefficient but there was always the possibility that you would miss a page. Now you can make the change in one file and the change will automatically be reflected in all your content pages.

There are times when you want to be able to customize a portion of your masterpage from your content page. There is actually a couple ways to accomplish this task. Follow me in this article as I show you how.

Create a String from a Hash

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Have you ever wanted to create a hash from an input and then convert the hash back to a string for storing? It's fairly simple to do with the .NET Framework. But why not create your own class to encapsulate the logic for easy use later on. Read on to learn how to create a simple class to perform this task.

Use CSS to pin the footer to the bottom of the browser's viewport.

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Pinning the footer to the bottom of the browser's viewport has been a challenge that many people seem to encounter when using CSS. It keep quite a task to come up with a solution that works across all major browsers and versions. The particular setup I use I've been using for quite awhile. I find it reliable and hopefully it will help you resolve this issue for yourself.

Publish a Custom Event

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0700

When I was new to object-oriented programming I tended to steer clear of adding custom events to my classes. Methods and properties were easy to grasp and setup and I just really had not come to understand how useful events were in order to be motivated to learn how to create them. But for those of you that have found this article I can assure you they are a very useful tool that can make things much simpler for you. After all, object-oriented programming is event-driven. Follow me in this article to learn how you can create your own custom event.

Implement Business Logic with the SqlDataSource Control

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0700

In the past I've opted to use the ObjectDataSource control instead of SqlDataSource control because I had the mindset that separating the business logic from the presentation layer was a must and in many cases it is. But as I've come to develop some more simple web applications which would be hosted on a shared hosting account I've come around a little on that. Many of those sites really didn't have a whole lot of extra logic surrounding each connection to the database. I found by keeping these smaller web sites in a 2-tier architecture I saved myself a lot of time. I like the "keep it simple" method.

How to Validate Controls Only if Certain Conditions are Met.

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0700

If you are like me you have been in a situation many times before where you needed to validate the input of controls on your web form only if certain conditions existed. For example, an order form commonly presents two sets of fields for collecting the customer's billing and shipping addresses. In many cases the two addresses are identical so a checkbox is present to indicate as such and therefore only one set needs to be completed. To implement this with the existing framework validation controls you'd have to use several instances of the CustomValidator control. There's certainly nothing wrong with this but I wasn't satisfied with that. I wanted to extend the framework to make this situation much easier. Wouldn't it be great if you could write one method in your code-behind and one javascript method where you would write the logic for determining whether validation should be performed or not and have all your validation controls use this same logic? In fact you can and I will show you how.

Trimming a string in javascript

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0700

For those of you who develop applications using the .NET Framework are no doubt familiar with the many tools that are available to work with and manipulate strings. I have found that many of those methods are also built into javascript. Unfortunately, some of my favorite methods I use often, the trim methods, are not available.

How to determine which objects depend on another object in Sql Server

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Have you ever been in the situation where you needed to make a modification to an existing object in a SQL Server database but were not sure what impact the change would have on other objects? What objects depend on this object you are about to change? It can be a scary thing to make a change to a well-developed database system.