Question

I am trying to create an ItemTemplate using a 4×3 table. I want the first column to contain an image and the cells in the other columns info about the image. I am using the code below but the 1st row renders at the bottom of the image and the 2nd row below it. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks in advance.

<LayoutTemplate>
        <table runat="server" cellpadding="2" id="tblBooks" style="">
          <tr runat="server">
              <td runat="server">
                  <table ID="itemPlaceholderContainer" runat="server" border="0" style="">
                      <tr ID="itemPlaceholder" runat="server">
                      </tr>
                  </table>
              </td>
          </tr>
            <tr runat="server">
                <td runat="server" style="">
                    <asp:DataPager ID="DataPager1" runat="server">
                        <Fields>
                            <asp:NextPreviousPagerField ButtonType="Button" ShowFirstPageButton="True" 
                                ShowNextPageButton="False" ShowPreviousPageButton="False" />
                            <asp:NumericPagerField />
                            <asp:NextPreviousPagerField ButtonType="Button" ShowLastPageButton="True" 
                                ShowNextPageButton="False" ShowPreviousPageButton="False" />
                        </Fields>
                    </asp:DataPager>
                </td>
            </tr>
        </table>
    </LayoutTemplate>
<ItemTemplate>
         <tr runat="server">
            <td rowspan="4">
                <asp:Image ID="Image1" runat="server" ImageUrl='<%# String.Format("~\\Static\\Images\\BookCovers\\{0}", Eval("CoverImageSmall")) %>' Height="120" Width="90"/>
            </td>
            <td colspan="2" style="font-size:large; padding-bottom:5px; padding-left:10px; color:Black;">
                <asp:Label runat="server" ID="TitleLabel" Text='<%# Eval("Title") %>' />
            </td>  
         </tr>
         <tr runat="server">
            <td colspan="2" style="padding-left:10px;">
                <asp:Label runat="server" ID="FirstNameLabel" Text='<%# Eval("FirstName") %>' />
                <asp:Label runat="server" ID="LastNameLabel" Text='<%# Eval("LastName") %>' />
            </td>
         </tr>
         <tr runat="server">
            <td colspan="2" style="padding-left:10px;">
            </td>
         </tr>
         <tr runat="server">
            <td>
            </td>
            <td>
            </td>
         </tr>
    </ItemTemplate>

EDIT: To be more clear, the result I am after is like this:

______________________________________________
|               |___________Title_____________|
|    Image      |____________Name_____________|
|               |______Value_____|____Value___|
|_______________|______Value_____|____Value___|

But what I get is this:

______________________________________________
| _____________ |                             |
||   Image    | |                             |
||            | |                             |
||____________| |___________Title_____________|
|               |____________Name_____________|
|               |______Value_____|____Value___|
|_______________|______Value_____|____Value___|

The CSS is reset.

Answer 1

The rowspan automatically makes the column and all the other rows/cells will be added around it. You can remove all the colspans and the second td in the last row.

<ItemTemplate>
     <tr runat="server">
        <td rowspan="4">
            <asp:Image ID="Image1" runat="server" ImageUrl='<%# String.Format("~\\Static\\Images\\BookCovers\\{0}", Eval("CoverImageSmall")) %>' Height="120" Width="90"/>
        </td>
        <td style="font-size:large; padding-bottom:5px; padding-left:10px; color:Black;">
            <asp:Label runat="server" ID="TitleLabel" Text='<%# Eval("Title") %>' />
        </td>  
     </tr>
     <tr runat="server">
        <td style="padding-left:10px;">
            <asp:Label runat="server" ID="FirstNameLabel" Text='<%# Eval("FirstName") %>' />
            <asp:Label runat="server" ID="LastNameLabel" Text='<%# Eval("LastName") %>' />
        </td>
     </tr>
     <tr runat="server">
        <td style="padding-left:10px;">
        </td>
     </tr>
     <tr runat="server">
        <td>
        </td>
     </tr>
</ItemTemplate>

UPDATE: Based on the supplied jsfiddle, it shows the issue is with the use of the vertical-align:baseline attribute applied by the reset css stylesheet. If that CSS attribute is removed, or is overridden for the title cell to something like vertical-align:bottom it displays as expected. See http://jsfiddle.net/9HsvF/10/