I want to able to create reusable user controls within my web app and i'm wondering on how to go about doing so.
Should a user controls properties be
visible to a form that's using it?
What's the best way to go about
loading the controls on the user
control from the form thats using
it? Should there be a public method
within the control that allows you
to load it from an external form or should the user
control be loaded in the page load
event
Is it okay to nest user controls within user controls?
etc...
Thanks for any advice
1) You only need to make properties visible if any page needs to read or modify information on your control. I personally like to keep my user controls as self contained as possible, and keep this to a minimum.
2) I would just rely on the built in page life cycle to render your control, but it is important to note when each of your control's events fire in relation to your pages. You may find that there are times that you need something on your control to render before something on your page does. In this case you will need to rely on the page_init in your control more than the page_load of your control.
3) You technically can nest user controls, but things will get tricky if you need to start reading and writing information (as in your first question) from any of the nested controls. Also, the page life cycle of the nested controls gets even more important. I would avoid this if you can.
Related
I followed this link http://www.wintellect.com/devcenter/jprosise/handling-the-back-button-in-windows-10-uwp-apps and "successfully" make my button work. I mean I can make my backbutton work between pages. However, if I navigate to a control which is inside this page and will cover the whole screen, then it would not allow me to back to the page. I will stuck in that control.
I'm wondering how to solve this problem. Currently I can think two possible ways (0) Override OnBackRequested() inside the control's code behind or viewmodel? (1) Override OnHardwareButtonsBackPressed() inside the control's code behind or viewmodel?. I don't know if these are correct way to do it or there is some better way to do it. Another reason for me to override is that I need to make some changes to the page navigation behavior.
As you have guessed, you simply need to hide the control again when the back button is pressed or back is requested in some other way. I would listen for the BackRequested event (not the HardwareButtons.BackPressed event) in the page's code-behind, and in the handling method you can check to see if the control is currently shown. The reason I recommend the BackRequested event is because it is universal, while HardwareButtons.BackPressed only works on a phone. Anyway, if the control is visible, then hide it, and set the Handled property of the event arguments to true. If the control is already hidden, don't do anything special to handle the event (because in that case you will want the navigation system to handle it by navigating to the previous page, if there is one). There are many aspects to navigation in Windows 10 -- please see these pages on Navigation and the SystemNavigationManager.
I have some custom controls that I want to include in Xpages, but I don't want them to be visible to the user or to take up space on the screen, as it is throwing my alignment off. I have looked at the properties rendered, loaded, and visible, but I don't really understand them and they don't seem to do what I want, which is to include some functionality but not change the layout.
I am sure there is a way to do this, but I can't figure it out.
Loaded means it won't be added to the component tree and only affects server-side functionality. Because it's not in the component tree (the server-side map of the page) it can't be passed to the browser or processed during partial refreshes. Rendered and visible are the same and mean they're in the component tree, so server-side processing can interact with them, but no HTML is passed to the browser for them. So you can't interact with them via CSJS. If you want it passed to the browser, available for CSJS but not visible to the user, you'll need to set the style as display:none. Another option is to put that style in a theme and allocate the themeId you choose to your custom control.
I am currently on a project redesigning an existing traditional domino web application to XPages. This application contains a web form with quite a lot of helper dialog boxes. Also notifications and validation and confirmation is done through dialogboxes.
I know I can create a custom control for each dialog box and add it to the Xpage and call the show. I even managed to load it dynamically using a dynamic content control with a facet for each dialog. Since the dialog cc contains a show() in the onClientLoad. It is easy to open a dialog by switching the content of the dynamic content control.
Still, adding all these custom controls to my XPages feels inefficient and really clutters the design tab. What's your take?
I would prefer setting the content of the dialog dynamically (Like in traditional domino you would define a form for each dialog). Is that possible?
If not is it possible to load a custom control dynamically (Like using a computed subform)?
Also for confirmation boxes I need the OK button to execute different code for each confirm. What would be the best way to implement that? Add custom parameter "functionOnOk" to the "dlgConfirm" custom control and evaluate that in the submit button?
PS: I am still using panels with dojoType=dijit.DialogBox, but will change those to extlib dialog boxes. For the confirm and messageboxes I am now using client side dijit.Dialogs with mark-up in code, but I would like the markup in XPages as well.
I know there are issues with panels with dijit.Dialog, because Dojo moves the dialog in the DOM, which prevents any SSJS in the dialog running. I don't know if that's also an issue with dijit.DialogBox, but I suspect it could be. Jeremy Hodge did some code to workaround that.
However, I would strongly recommend using the Extension Library control. Client-side dijit.Dialogs are likely to be much more difficult to code and will not allow any SSJS interaction. I'm not aware of any Dojo properties not available in the Extension Library control, and the Extension Library control also allows you to open or close the dialog both in CSJS or SSJS. It also allows you to specify an area to refresh on close.
In terms of the properties, preload is there purely to speed up showing. Are you using the refreshOnShow property? This ensures the URL or content is refreshed each time the dialog is shown. The Extension Library chapter on dialogs has a table covering all the properties. You can set the URL to point to another XPage or another web page. This may allow you to use the Dynamic Content control to pass parameters to switch the content that should appear.
In terms of the code behind the OK button, if you use the Extension Library dialog, you have all the functionality you would have outside the dialog.
I have 2 webparts which are connected, where the provider sends a string to the consumer.
However it fails to work if I put any TextBox controls in the consumer webpart. (works fine if I use a Label or Literal control.
The idea is that the consumer is to be composed of form controls like TextBoxes.
e.g. the codeproject sample at http://www.codeproject.com/KB/sharepoint/ConnectingCustomWebParts.aspx
Works fine... until you replace the consumer Label control with a TextBox.
Any help gratefully received.
Well, if this still needs an answer....
Why it would work with one control and not another, I'm not sure. The reason I couldn't get it to work consistently as is coded in that sample is due to the issues brought to fore in this article. The data just isn't always there in the create controls part of the web part life cycle. I had much better luck getting my data and putting it somewhere, either the session or the viewstate during the ConnectionConsumer event, then setting the value to the control that needed to display it in the OnPreRender event, or just somehow binding to the control, say in a grid, and just calling refresh on the List I was using as a datasource in the OnPreRender, calling Refresh in the create controls didn't work reliably, only in OnPreRender.
Once I truly grokked the web part lifecycle, things became much simpler for me, and finally taught me why in Java portlets they went with the post/redirect/get cycle to try and avoid this very granular coordination between various portlets on a page.
I'm workin on my first webpart.
I use some number of user controls as screens. And I have a trouble here.
First screen contains a list of dynamically created options (hyperlinks). After user made a decision with click, I want to change the screen and pass to the new screen some parameters.
My dicision is to load all controls I need on webpart creation. Controls I don't need right now I make invisible.
SomeUserControl1 uc1 = (SomeUserControl1)Page.LoadControl("~/_controltemplates/SomeUserControl1.ascx");
SomeUserControl2 uc2 = (SomeUserControl2)Page.LoadControl("~/_controltemplates/SomeUserControl2.ascx");
uc2.Visible = false;
Controls.Add(uc1);
Controls.Add(uc2);
Option in first user control realized as LinkButtons (serverside). OnClik event calls a special method in the webpart class and in this method i change a visibility of my user controls and pass some parameters to usercontrol2.
I don't like this approach. Are there different ways to realize described functionality?
Thanks!
You need use a ASP.NET Wizard Control, it does what you exactly you want.
From a design standpoint what you are doing looks a little bit frightening. You should think about nesting the various user controls into a single user control that you can use as the face of your webpart. Keep the coupling between the various user controls loose and think about implementing the Observer pattern if you need to do things like playing with control visibility.