Comments on: Robust ASP.NET control referencing in JavaScript

By: Jason Hardesty

Jason Hardesty — Fri, 20 May 2011 19:06:08 +0000

I have controls that are created at runtime. How can I get the clientID?

Can I use/how do I use to get the value of a required field validator:

$("[id$=_mycontrolid]")

By: Dave Ward

Dave Ward — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 20:10:00 +0000

I think it has some interesting ideas, but it’s not something I’m interested in using myself. I think it relies on the assumption that you like things like the page lifecycle and server controls, which I don’t.

By: alkos333

alkos333 — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 19:06:54 +0000

Yes, Razor is a thing of beauty – loving the templating concept w/o the need explicitly indicate server-side code.

What are you thoughts on ASP.NET WebForms MVP: http://webformsmvp.com/ (way down there..)

By: Dave Ward

Dave Ward — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 18:48:47 +0000

I’m able to make do with either ASP.NET WebForms or ASP.NET MVC, if I have the freedom to use them how I desire. Whether it’s an ASMX endpoint or an MVC controller action, I’ll work with anything that can send and receive JSON effectively. On the backend of either, working with the view models and business logic is almost identical.

I do like the Razor view engine a lot though.

(looks like we’re at the bottom now)

By: alkos333

alkos333 — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 18:44:23 +0000

So I am assuming you are a huge proponent of MVC then :)? (it’s closing in)

By: Dave Ward

Dave Ward — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 18:41:40 +0000

Often, the only way to wean legacy projects off the old WebForms model is slowly, over time. In those situations, it’s helpful to be able to transition to approaches like using jQuery Validation and using jQuery to interact with services, while remaining within the confines of WebForms and the single-form-per-page model that it imposes. Otherwise, the choice becomes one between an entire rewrite or just adding new functionality the old way, and the rewrite rarely wins there. (pretty narrow!)

By: alkos333

alkos333 — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 18:02:12 +0000

Meaning? … ( hmm.. just how narrow can this threading window get w/ so many posts)

By: Dave Ward

Dave Ward — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 18:00:13 +0000

One step at a time.

By: alkos333

alkos333 — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 17:56:19 +0000

That is true – you have to go all in to take the full advantage. But Dave, majority of the posts on this blog deal with how to have jQuery play nicely with ASP.NET. A perfect example is validation plug-in and validation group posts. If you are fully embracing here, why not use ASP.NET’s validation controls :)?

By: Dave Ward

Dave Ward — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 17:51:57 +0000

I think the key is to either fully embrace the ASP.NET server control approach or fully avoid it. Trying to do half and half is tough.

By: alkos333

alkos333 — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 17:47:53 +0000

I should add that I really enjoy the server-side programming in C# for example – it’s just writing pure client side code for a ASP.NET 4 can be such a pita sometimes.

By: alkos333

alkos333 — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 17:46:15 +0000

That is what I do to mitigate the issue – I rather take a performance hit than globally define variables for every possible element I’ll be using in the user control. That’s just seems like such a maintenance nightmare to me.

After a few years of ASP.NET now, it feels like a one big hack after all. Working on a project in PHP recently felt like a breath of fresh air – so clean and elegant.

By: Dave Ward

Dave Ward — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 17:40:30 +0000

One important thing to keep in mind when using that “ends with” selector is that it’s one of the slowest possible selectors. Each time it appears, you’re asking jQuery to loop through every DOM element on the page and execute a substring comparison (every DOM element – even after a first match is located).

If you know the type of element you’re searching for, you can use that to mitigate the problem a bit, e.g.:

$('a[id$=yourLinkButtonID]')

Then, at least you narrow the search down to all of a particular element type on the page, which jQuery can quickly retrieve with a getElementsByTagName().

By: alkos333

alkos333 — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 17:37:57 +0000

The only problem with static client IDs is potential clashes when writing for a bigger existing system. For example, when you are writing a module for a content management system which was implemented with WebForms, you might have a number of various content parts with various names, so you need to use either AutoID or Predictable modes to avoid clashes since there is only one . What a big freaking joke…

By: cchitsiang

cchitsiang — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 17:31:30 +0000

Yes, i believe that will be easier too..and I using that too :)