Question

The following code will not add a control to an aspx placeholder:

var control = new ASCXControl { ID="searchFilters", Filters = filters };

var placeholder = Utility.FindControlRecursive(Page, "rightColumnSearchFilters") as PlaceHolder;
if(placeholder != null){
  placeholder.Controls.Add(control);
  placeholder.Visible = true;
}

When debugging, the placeholder is found and the control shows as added to the placeholder controls collection after entering the block, but yet I see nothing render into the placeholder on the page.

I currently need to pass variables to the control in order to find the filters I need to display. Although I don’t like passing variables between controls, I don’t see any other way.

What am I missing would make the control not render? Is there a better way to do this?

EDIT:

I am trying to get the HTML inside of the ascx to render. I am able to get the Filters parameters inside the Page_Load on the control.

Answer 1

This may or may not be the whole problem, but usually trying to instantiate a UserControl the way you’re doing it leads to problems. You should do it using the LoadControl(path) method of the Page class:

ASCXControl ctl = (ASCXControl) LoadControl("path");

I’m not 100% sure, but I think that if you just instantiate it like an ordinary class/control, you wind up not running all the event handlers (such as Load) that you usually would.