Web Control Library

[Mark Goldin]

How do I actually add controls to Web Control Library project?
Can I do it visually or it's all in code?

 

[Karl]

No, you can't visually do it. You can do it in code via either the Render()
or CreateChildControls() methods. Nikhil has a great book
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0735615829/nikhilkothari-20 - though
I'd consider the topic advanced. There are a number of online resources.

Karl

 

[Mark Goldin]

I see.
Where can I find a sample of how to create a custom control
that would have a label and a text box?

 

[Karl]

What you are takling about is creating a Composite Web Control. This
article might be useful: http://aspalliance.com/359 (it's part 2 of a 3
part piece, you might be interested in all 3).
There's also this one:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/d.../cpguide/html/cpconcompositecontrolsample.asp

Karl

 

[Stephen Woolhead]

If you want to design the controls visually what I do is create a second web
project and add all my controls to that. When I need to use the library I
just copy the ascx files into my main web app and add a reference back to my
'controls' web project. I do this to allow our designers access to the
control layout without letting them near the code. It also means that you
have a easy maintainable base line set of the ascx controls that you can
copy into a new project when every you need to use the library.

I would add that this plan seems to have been screwed by asp.net 2.0 as it
would seem that you can no longer add a reference to a web project within a
solution, in fact I cant even find the assembly the project creates at the
moment ;-)

Stephen.