Question

I have two aspx pages:

1. DashboardPreview.aspx: This is the homepage. It shows top 5 dashboards in a DataGridView. It shows other information too.

2. DashboardList.aspx: It shows all the dashboards with pagination in a DataGridView.

There are several controls available for each dashboard (i.e. for each row of the DataGridView). For example: a dashboard can be “edited” and “shared” with other users.

I would like to code the DataGridView only ONCE.

Then, I would like to use that code in both the pages. How do I do it?

Note: I create DataGridView by dragging and dropping it from Toolbox of Visual Studio i.e. I did not code the entire thing myself. However, I did create controls like “Share” button myself.

Answer 1

If you want to reuse a server control across pages then you need to create a User Control.

To create a User Control:

1. I would create a specific folder for user controls.
2. Right click that folder and select “Add New Item” and then select User Control.
3. Enter the GridView inside of that User Control

Your User Control will look something like this:

<%@ Control Language="VB" AutoEventWireup="false" CodeFile="YourUserControlName.ascx.vb" Inherits="Controls_YourUserControlName" %>

<asp:GridView ID="GridView1">
    <!-- Do you grid view stuff here -->
</asp:GridView>

To use a User Control you need to register it on the page you want to use it on. The code looks like this:

<%@ Register Src="~/Controls/ucGrid.ascx" TagName="ucGrid" TagPrefix="uc" %>

Then you would use it just like a server control.

<uc:ucGrid ID="GridView" runat="server" />

However, registering the User Control on every page can become tedious, so to make things easier you can register them in your web.config.

<system.web>
  <pages>
    <controls>
      <add tagPrefix="uc" src="~/Controls/ucGrid.ascx" tagName="ucGrid"/>
    </controls>
  </pages>
</system.web>