c# control names

Question

Is there a way to control how .Net sets the Name and ID property of my controls? I have some radio buttons for which I need the name to be the same. However if I set the ID property of the radio button control it sets the Name and the ID. I see no way to treat the ID and Name separately. So now all button's ids are the same as well.

If you are thinking that I should be using a RadioButtonList to achieve this you may be right, but I have not found a way to include table structure in a dynamically created RadioButtonList.

Thanks

3Dave · Accepted Answer · 2009-10-27 19:04:16Z

2

Yes.

Declare a descendant class from, say, a textbox, which overrides the UniqueID and ClientID properties. Then, use (in this example) MyControls.Textbox instead of the built-in textbox.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;


    namespace MyControls
    {
        public class Textbox : System.Web.UI.WebControls.TextBox
        {
            public override string ClientID
            {
                get
                {
                    return ID;
                }

            }

            public override string UniqueID
            {
                get
                {
                    return ID;
                }
            }

        }

        public class Button : System.Web.UI.WebControls.Button
        {

            public override string ClientID
            {
                get
                {
                    return ID;
                }

            }

            public override string UniqueID
            {
                get
                {
                    return ID;
                }
            }
        }
    }

Note that you'll need to register your controls in web.config:

<pages>
  <controls>
    <add tagPrefix="mycontrols" namespace="MyControls" assembly="MyAssembly" />
  </controls>
</pages>

Then you can reference them in your markup:

<mycontrols:TextBox id="myID" runat="server"/>

answered Oct 27, 2009 at 19:04

3Dave

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2 Comments

dannyrosalex Over a year ago

Do you have to create a seperate project to create this assembly, or can you do it inside of an already existing Web Application projcect in Visual Studio?

3Dave Over a year ago

Nope, put it wherever you want. As long as the page can see the control class (references, registration, etc set correctly) you're good.

Darren Kopp · Accepted Answer · 2009-10-27 18:59:54Z

1

Doesn't work quite like that in .net. They need to be uniquely named because that's how they correlate the radio button back to viewstate. I would ask why you need them to be the same name? If it's because you want the user to only be able to select 1 item out of x, then you want to use the GroupName property.

answered Oct 27, 2009 at 18:59

Darren Kopp

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Comments

pyrocumulus · Accepted Answer · 2009-10-27 18:58:15Z

0

If you omit the runat="server" attribute from the control's definition, it's name and ID are free for you to set. However, whether or not this is an option depends on your situation.

In the other case, there is no way to really control the Name and ID properties for those controls yourself. That is, not until ASP.NET 4.0 (look here for more information) is released.

answered Oct 27, 2009 at 18:58

pyrocumulus

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Comments

Chris Shaffer · Accepted Answer · 2009-10-27 18:58:37Z

0

I have solved this problem in the past by creating a new control that inherits from RadioButton but adds a new GroupName property that is used to render the name of the control. Unfortunately I don't have the code handy, but a quick google came up with something similar on codeproject.

answered Oct 27, 2009 at 18:58

Chris Shaffer

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