Question

I have form with few text boxes which goes through validation (both server and client sides). In the form I have buttons: “Next”, “Back”, “CanceL”. So I don’t need validation to fireup then user clicks “back” or “cancel” buttons. How can I achieve this?
Thanks in advance!

---

Some sample:

<div class="buttons">    
<input type="submit" name="cancelButton" value="" />
<input type="submit" name="backButton" value="" />
<input type="submit" name="nextButton" value="" />
</div>

<% using (Html.BeginForm()) { %>
    <p>

    <table style="width: 200px">    
    <tr><td align="center" colspan=2><%= Html.ValidationMessageFor(m => m.street) %><%= Html.DropDownListFor(m => m.street, Model.streetsList) %></td></tr>
    <tr><td colspan=2>&nbsp;</td></tr>
    <tr><td valign="bottom" align="right" style="width: 75px"><%= Html.LabelFor(m => m.flatNumber) %>:</td><td align=left><%= Html.TextBoxFor(m => m.flatNumber, new { maxlength = 6, style = "width: 48px;" })%> <%= Html.ValidationMessageFor(m => m.flatNumber) %></td></tr>
    </table>
    <br />

        <input type="submit" class="refusal button red floatL" name="cancelButton" value="" />
        <input type="submit" class="back button green floatL" name="backButton" value="" />
        <input type="submit" class="continue button green floatR marR" name="nextButton" value="" />
    </div>
    <div class="clear">
    </div>
    <% } %>

At the server side I use DataAnnotations attributes for validation.

Answer 1

the Button class has a CausesValidation property – if that is set to false, validation won’t be triggered on postback.

Example:

<asp:Button id="btnCancel" CausesValidation="false" onClick="bntCancel_Click" Text="Cancel" runat="server" />

Note that this will disable the ASP.NET validators – if you have your own validation you will need to disable it another way.