Introduction:
This article describes an easy approach to extending an
existing ASP.NET control; in this example, the standard toolkit's Image Button
control is extended to support roll-over effects. Given the standard control
already contains existing support for both server side click events and client
click events, the control is well furbished prior to the addition of the
roll-over effect.
One possible use for this control may be to drop
several of them into a panel and use the panel and collection of buttons as a
toolbar. Naturally the control would work just fine as a standalone control as
well.
Getting Started:
In order to get started, open up the Visual Studio 2005
IDE and start a new project. From the new project dialog (Figure 1), under
project types, select the "Windows" node from beneath "Visual Basic", then
select the "Web Control Library" template in the right hand pane. Key in a name
for the project and then click "OK".
Once the project has opened; right click on the
solution and click on the "Add" menu option, and then select "New Item". When
the "Add New Item" dialog appears (Figure 2), select the "Web Custom Control"
template, after selecting the template, key "EIB.vb" into the name field and
then click "Add" to close the dialog. You may now delete the default web control
that was created when the project was originally initialized from the template.
At this point, we should have an open web control
library project with a single web control named "EIB.vb" in that project. One
last step prior to writing the code for this project will be to add in one
needed reference. To add this reference, double click on the "My Project" icon
in the solution explorer to open "My Project", from here, select the
"References" tab, and then click the "Add" button. When the "Add Reference"
dialog opens, select the .NET tab, and search down the list until you find the
"System.Design" reference. Select this library and click on the "OK" button.
![EIBbutton1-invb.net.gif]()
Figure 1: Visual Studio 2005 New Project Dialog
![EIBbutton2-in-vb.net.gif]()
Figure 2: Add New Item Dialog
Navigate back to the "EIB.vb" file and, at the top of
the file, add in the import statement highlighted below: (Note that the Bindable
attribute has been added and set to true, but it is not necessary as I have not
implementing any data binding in this example)
Imports
System
Imports
System.Collections.Generic
Imports
System.ComponentModel
Imports
System.Text
Imports
System.Web
Imports
System.Web.UI.Design
Imports
System.Web.UI
Imports
System.Web.UI.WebControls
<Bindable(True)>
_
Public
Class EIB
Inherits System.Web.UI.WebControls.ImageButton
We are now ready to add the code necessary to make this
control functional. The first thing to do is to set up a few of simple
initialization settings; we can do that in the public sub new declaration and in
the EIB load event (add a Methods region and key in the following; note that we
have not yet defined the MouseOverImage and MouseOutImage properties but we will
shortly):
#Region
"Methods"
Public Sub
New()
Width = 24
Height = 24
MouseOverImage =
""
MouseOutImage =
""
PostBackUrl =
""
End Sub
#End
Region
Having completed that task, we will need to provide
public properties to expose the control's properties to the control user; in
order to accomplish these steps, create a "Properties" region and key in the
following code: (Note that all of the property values are held in view state
rather than in local member variables)
#Region
"Properties"
<Category("Button
Images")> _
<Browsable(True)>
_
<Bindable(True)>
_
<Description("Set
path to mouseover image file.")> _
<Editor(GetType(System.Web.UI.Design.UrlEditor),
_
GetType(System.Drawing.Design.UITypeEditor))> _
Public Property MouseOverImage()
As String
Get
Dim s As
String = Convert.ToString(ViewState("MouseOverImage"))
If s Is
Nothing Or s =
"" Then
Return String.Empty
Else
Dim tilde As
Integer = -1
tilde = s.IndexOf("~")
If (tilde <> -1) Then
Return s.Substring((tilde + 2)).Trim()
Else
Return s
End If
End If
End Get
Set(ByVal value
As String)
ViewState("MouseOverImage")
= value
End Set
End Property
<Category("Button
Images")> _
<Browsable(True)>
_
<Bindable(True)>
_
<Description("Set
path to mouseout image file.")> _
<Editor(GetType(System.Web.UI.Design.UrlEditor),
_
GetType(System.Drawing.Design.UITypeEditor))> _
Public Property MouseOutImage()
As String
Get
Dim s As
String = Convert.ToString(ViewState("MouseOutImage"))
If s Is
Nothing Or s =
"" Then
Return String.Empty
Else
Dim tilde As
Integer = -1
tilde = s.IndexOf("~")
If (tilde <> -1) Then
Return s.Substring((tilde + 2)).Trim()
Else
Return s
End If
End If
End Get
Set(ByVal value
As String)
ViewState("MouseOutImage")
= value
End Set
End Property
#End
Region
Note that, in the attributes section above each
property declaration, the code specifies an editor and further that the editor
specified is defined as the URL Editor. Adding this attribute to the control
specifies to the IDE how the property is to be edited; in this instance, when
the control user sets the image file path properties for the control, the
property grid will display a button with an ellipsis in it at the right hand
side of the text box. If the user clicks on the button, the IDE will open the
URL editor and will permit the user to use that editor to navigate to the image
file and set the image file path property through that editor's dialog.
Properties set in this manner will be persisted within
the control user's project. Note that the URL editor will prefix the selected
path with a tilde and a slash, neither of which is useful in this context, given
that the file path will not be found at run time with the tilde and slash added,
this bit of code checks for those characters and removes them so that when these
values are added to the rendered page, they will be in the form of a usable file
path string:
Dim
s As String
= Convert.ToString(ViewState("MouseOutImage"))
If
s Is Nothing
Or s = ""
Then
Return String.Empty
Else
Dim tilde As
Integer = -1
tilde = s.IndexOf("~")
If (tilde <> -1) Then
Return s.Substring((tilde + 2)).Trim()
Else
Return s
End If
End
If
The last thing to do is render the control, add a
"Rendering" region to your project and add the following code:
#Region
"Rendering"
Protected Overrides
Sub OnPreRender(ByVal
e As System.EventArgs)
Me.ImageUrl = MouseOutImage.ToString()
Me.Attributes.Add("onmouseover",
"this.src='" & _
MouseOverImage.ToString() &
"';")
Me.Attributes.Add("onmouseout",
"this.src='" & _
MouseOutImage.ToString() &
"';")
MyBase.OnPreRender(e)
End Sub
#End
Region
This seems pretty straight forward but if you take a
look at the code you will note that first we are overriding the OnPreRender
subroutine; the first line of code within the subroutine will match the Image
URL property to the MouseOutImage property's value. Next we are adding the two
attributes that are the gist of this control extension, in the first we are add
an "onmouseover" event and telling it to change the source of the image file to
the path provided by our MouseOverImage property. The next attribute set
performs a similar chore by setting up the onmouseout event with the image file
specified in the MouseOutImage property. The last line, MyBase.OnPreRender(e) is
there to make sure that the rest of the standard image button's properties and
methods are carried forward into the new control.
The control is now complete. Prior to testing the
control, rebuild the project. Once that has been completed and any errors
encountered are repaired, it is time to test the control. To test the control,
add a new web site project to the web control library project currently open.
Once the test web site has been created, set the test project as the start up
project by right clicking on the web site solution in the solution explorer and
selecting the "Set as Start Up Project" menu option. Next, locate the
Default.aspx page in the web site solution, right click on this page and select
the "Set as Start Page" menu option.
If you downloaded the project, you can configure a
virtual directory pointing at the example website and examine it instead of
creating one from scratch. The example project contains two subordinate
projects, one containing the web class library with the single custom web
control (EIB) and a sample website with additional files needed to support the
demonstration.
If you configure the sample project and start the
default page, you will see a collection of the EIB button controls arranged at
the top of the page in a manner similar to a toolbar. The controls each have a
mouse over effect which consists of an alternate version of the normal icon,
some of the buttons make JavaScript calls. Some are set to post back to the
server and some are set up only to execute a JavaScript command in response to
the "on client click" event.
To prevent post backs on the controls used only to
execute a client side script, you may use the following approach: In the "on
client click" property, add in the JavaScript command you wish to execute
followed by a semi-colon and the term "return false" in a manner similar to the
following:
![EIBbutton3-in-vb.net.gif]()
Figure 3: Configuring On Client Click to Prevent Post
backs.
That is it, once the site is up and running, you should
observe the following displayed in your browser window.
![EIBbutton4-in-vb.net.gif]()
Figure 4: EIB Button Example in Internet Explorer