Child Control Initialization in Custom Composite in ASP.NET

Question

Part of the series of controls I am working on obviously involves me lumping some of them together in to composites. I am rapidly starting to learn that this takes consideration (this is all new to me!) :)

I basically have a StyledWindow control, which is essentially a glorified Panel with ability to do other bits (like add borders etc).

Here is the code that instantiates the child controls within it. Up till this point it seems to have been working correctly with mundane static controls:

    protected override void CreateChildControls()
    {
        _panel = new Panel();

        if (_editable != null)
            _editable.InstantiateIn(_panel);

        _regions = new List<IAttributeAccessor>();
        _regions.Add(_panel);
    }

The problems came today when I tried nesting a more complex control within it. This control uses a reference to the page since it injects JavaScript in to make it a bit more snappy and responsive (the RegisterClientScriptBlock is the only reason I need the page ref).

Now, this was causing "object null" errors, but I localized this down to the render method, which was of course trying to call the method against the [null] Page object.

What's confusing me is that the control works fine as a standalone, but when placed in the StyledWindow it all goes horribly wrong!

So, it looks like I am missing something in either my StyledWindow or ChildControl. Any ideas?

Update

As Brad Wilson quite rightly pointed out, you do not see the controls being added to the Controls collection. This is what the _panel is for, this was there to handle that for me, basically then override Controls (I got this from a guide somewhere):

    Panel _panel;    // Sub-Control to store the "Content".
    public override ControlCollection Controls
    {
        get
        {
            EnsureChildControls();
            return _panel.Controls;
        }
    }

I hope that helps clarify things. Apologies.

Update Following Longhorn213's Answer

Right, I have been doing some playing with the control, placing one within the composite, and one outside. I then got the status of Page at event major event in the control Lifecycle and rendered it to the page.

The standalone is working fine and the page is inited as expected. However, the one nested in the Composite is different. It's OnLoad event is not being fired at all! So I am guessing Brad is probably right in that I am not setting up the control hierarchy correctly, can anyone offer some advice as to what I am missing? Is the Panel method not enough? (well, it obviously isn't is it?!) :D

Thanks for your help guys, appreciated :)

Answer 1

Solved!

Right, I was determined to get this cracked today! Here were my thoughts:

• I thought the use of Panel was a bit of a hack, so I should remove it and find out how it is really done.
• I didn't want to have to do something like MyCtl.Controls[0].Controls to access the controls added to the composite.
• I wanted the damn thing to work!

So, I got searching and hit MSDN, this artcle was REALLY helpful (i.e. like almost copy 'n' paste, and explained well - something MSDN is traditionally bad at). Nice!

So, I ripped out the use of Panel and pretty much followed the artcle and took it as gospel, making notes as I went.

Here's what I have now:

• I learned I was using the wrong term. I should have been calling it a Templated Control. While templated controls are technically composites, there is a distinct difference. Templated controls can define the interface for items that are added to them.
• Templated controls are very powerful and actually pretty quick and easy to set up once you get your head round them!
• I will play some more with the designer support to ensure I fully understand it all, then get a blog post up :)
• A "Template" control is used to specify the interface for templated data.

For example, here is the ASPX markup for a templated control:

<cc1:TemplatedControl ID="MyCtl" runat="server">
    <Template>
        <!-- Templated Content Goes Here -->
    </Template>
</cc1:TemplatedControl>   

Heres the Code I Have Now

public class DummyWebControl : WebControl
{
    // Acts as the surrogate for the templated controls.
    // This is essentially the "interface" for the templated data.
}

In TemplateControl.cs...

    ITemplate _template;
    // Surrogate to hold the controls instantiated from 
    // within the template.
    DummyWebControl _owner;

    protected override void CreateChildControls()
    {
        // Note we are calling base.Controls here
        // (you will see why in a min).
        base.Controls.Clear();
        _owner = new DummyWebControl();

        // Load the Template Content
        ITemplate template = _template;
        if (template == null)
            template = new StyledWindowDefaultTemplate();
        template.InstantiateIn(_owner);

        base.Controls.Add(_owner);
        ChildControlsCreated = true;
    }

Then, to provide easy access to the Controls of the [Surrogate] Object:

(this is why we needed to clear/add to the base.Controls)

    public override ControlCollection Controls
    {
        get
        {
            EnsureChildControls();
            return _owner.Controls;
        }
    }

And that is pretty much it, easy when you know how! :)

Next: Design Time Region Support!

Answer 2

Right, I got playing and I figured that there was something wrong with my control instantiation, since Longhorn was right, I should be able to create script references at OnLoad (and I couldn't), and Brad was right in that I need to ensure my Controls hierarchy was maintained by adding to the Controls collection of the composite.

So, I had two things here:

1. I had overriden the Controls property accessor for the composite to return this Panel's Controls collection since I dont want to have to go ctl.Controls[0].Controls[0] to get to the actual control I want. I have removed this, but I need to get this sorted.
2. I had not added the Panel to the Controls collection, I have now done this.

So, it now works, however, how do I get the Controls property for the composite to return the items in the Panel, rather than the Panel itself?

Answer 3

I have always put the JavaScript calls on the OnLoad Function. Such as below.

protected override void OnLoad(EventArgs e)
{

    // Do something to get the script
    string script = GetScript();

    this.Page.ClientScript.RegisterClientScriptBlock(this.Page.GetType(), "SomeJavaScriptName", script);

    // Could also use this function to determine if the script has been register. i.e. more than 1 of the controls exists
    this.Page.ClientScript.IsClientScriptBlockRegistered("SomeJavaScriptName");

    base.OnLoad(e);
}

If you still want to do the render, then you can just write the script in the response. Which is what the RegisterScriptBlock does, it just puts the script inline on the page.

Answer 4

I don't see you adding your controls to the Controls collection anywhere, which would explain why they can't access the Page (since they've never been officially placed on the page).