Question

At the moment I have a master page and a content page. My master page consists of a dropdownlist, from which I need to select a child from. The content page loads according the child chosen. How should I store the dropdownvalue chosen?

I don’t think I can use the session, since I would like the user to be able to open multiple tabs and watch different children contents at the same time. If I can use the session in this case, I’m not sure how.

I don’t think I can use the viewstate since, although it solves my multiple tabs problem, the master page and content page have a different view state.

At the moment I am using a public static variable on the content page, and I set it in the master page. But from what I’ve heard static variables have their values stored throughout ALL the current sessions on the site.

Question:
Can any one help me by suggesting which technology should I use?

I have also heard about the ‘Application’ object but I don’t think it makes sense to use it.

Current working Code:

(content page)

public static string Child
    {
        get
        {
            if (child == null)
                return "-1";
            return child;
        }

        set
        {
            child = value;
        }
    }

(master page)

protected void ddlChooseChild_IndexChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            ContentPage.Child = ddlChooseChild.SelectedValue;
        }

Answer 1

The best way to share data between different controls is to make use of the “Items” collection (which is a property of the HttpContext class). The collection is a Hashtable and can be accessed from your Page and User Controls like so:

Context.Items["Child"] = ddlChooseChild.SelectedValue;