I do a lot of work with control templates, and one of
the pieces of functionality that I've always wanted is
the ability to build a ITemplate from a string. Throughout
the years,
the topic has come up from time to time, and I never really found anything about how to do it. though I have run across a number of postings from people who are also wanting
the same capability. As I was messing around with things
the other day, I stumbled on how to make it work and I feel really foolish for not figuring it out sooner. ITemplate is an interface that exposes a single method named InstantiateIn. I've been searching for years for some magical .NET framework component that would take a string and convert it into an ITemplate, when all along I could just build my own. Here's
the code: /// <summary> /// Allows string-based ITempalte implementations /// </summary> public class StringTemplate : ITemplate { #region Constructor(s) //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// /// <summary> /// Constructor /// </summary> /// <param name="template">String based version of
the control template.</param> public StringTemplate(string template) { Template = template; } /// <summary> /// Constructor /// </summary> /// <param name="template">String based version of
the control template.</param> /// <param name="copyToContainer">True to copy intermediate container contents to
the instantiation container, False to leave
the intermediate container in place.</param> public StringTemplate(string template, bool copyToContainer) { Template = template; CopyToContainer = copyToContainer; } //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// #endregion #region Properties //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// /// <summary> /// String based template /// </summary> public string Template { get; set; } /// <summary> /// When a StringTemplate is instantiated it is created inside an intermediate control /// due to limitations of
the .NET Framework. Specifying True for
the CopyToContainer /// property copies all
the controls from
the intermediate container into instantiation /// container passed to
the InstantiateIn method. /// </summary> public bool CopyToContainer { get; set; } //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// #endregion #region ITemplate Members //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// /// <summary> /// Creates
the template in
the specified control. /// </summary> /// <param name="container">Control in which to make
the template</param> public void InstantiateIn(Control container) { Control tempContainer = container.Page.ParseControl(Template); if (CopyToContainer) { for (int i = tempContainer.
Controls.Count - 1; i >= 0; i--) { Control tempControl = tempContainer.Controls[i]; tempContainer.
Controls.RemoveAt(i); container.
Controls.AddAt(0, tempControl); } } else { container.
Controls.Add(tempContainer); } } //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// #endregion } //class Converting a string into a user control is fairly easy using
the ParseControl method from a Page object. Fortunately,
the container passed into
the InstantiateIn method has a Page property. One caveat, however, is that
the Page property only has a reference to a Page if
the container is located ON
the page. If you run into this problem, you may have to find a creative way to get
the Page reference (you can add it to
the constructor, store it in
the request context, etc). Another issue that I ran into is that
the ParseControl creates a new control, parses
the string template, places any
controls defined in
the template onto
the new control it created, and returns that new control with
the template on it. You cannot pass in your own container. Adding this directly to
the container provided as a parameter in
the InstantiateIn means that you end up with an additional "level" in
the control hierarchy. To avoid this, I added code in that removes each control from
the intermediate container and places it into
the actual container. I am not, however, sure about
the performance penalty associated with moving a bunch of control from one place to another, nor am I completely sure if doing such a move completely screws something up if you have a code behind, etc. It seems to work when it's just a template, but my testing was ever-so-slightly shy of thorough when it comes to other crazy scenarios. As a catch-all, I added a Boolean property called CopyToContainer that allows you to turn
the copying on or off depending on your desires and needs. Technorati Tags: .NET,ASP.NET,ITemplate,Development,C#,Custom
Controls,Server Controls
