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Rendering ASP.NET MVC Views to String

- by Rick Strahl

It's not uncommon in my applications that I require longish text output that does not have to be rendered into the HTTP output stream. The most common scenario I have for 'template driven' non-Web text is for emails of all sorts. Logon confirmations and verifications, email confirmations for things like orders, status updates or scheduler notifications - all of which require merged text output both within and sometimes outside of Web applications. On other occasions I also need to capture the output from certain views for logging purposes. Rather than creating text output in code, it's much nicer to use the rendering mechanism that ASP.NET MVC already provides by way of it's ViewEngines - using Razor or WebForms views - to render output to a string. This is nice because it uses the same familiar rendering mechanism that I already use for my HTTP output and it also solves the problem of where to store the templates for rendering this content in nothing more than perhaps a separate view folder. The good news is that ASP.NET MVC's rendering engine is much more modular than the full ASP.NET runtime engine which was a real pain in the butt to coerce into rendering output to string. With MVC the rendering engine has been separated out from core ASP.NET runtime, so it's actually a lot easier to get View output into a string. Getting View Output from within an MVC Application If you need to generate string output from an MVC and pass some model data to it, the process to capture this output is fairly straight forward and involves only a handful of lines of code. The catch is that this particular approach requires that you have an active ControllerContext that can be passed to the view. This means that the following approach is limited to access from within Controller methods. Here's a class that wraps the process and provides both instance and static methods to handle the rendering:/// <summary> /// Class that renders MVC views to a string using the /// standard MVC View Engine to render the view. /// /// Note: This class can only be used within MVC /// applications that have an active ControllerContext. /// </summary> public class ViewRenderer { /// <summary> /// Required Controller Context /// </summary> protected ControllerContext Context { get; set; } public ViewRenderer(ControllerContext controllerContext) { Context = controllerContext; } /// <summary> /// Renders a full MVC view to a string. Will render with the full MVC /// View engine including running _ViewStart and merging into _Layout /// </summary> /// <param name="viewPath"> /// The path to the view to render. Either in same controller, shared by /// name or as fully qualified ~/ path including extension /// </param> /// <param name="model">The model to render the view with</param> /// <returns>String of the rendered view or null on error</returns> public string RenderView(string viewPath, object model) { return RenderViewToStringInternal(viewPath, model, false); } /// <summary> /// Renders a partial MVC view to string. Use this method to render /// a partial view that doesn't merge with _Layout and doesn't fire /// _ViewStart. /// </summary> /// <param name="viewPath"> /// The path to the view to render. Either in same controller, shared by /// name or as fully qualified ~/ path including extension /// </param> /// <param name="model">The model to pass to the viewRenderer</param> /// <returns>String of the rendered view or null on error</returns> public string RenderPartialView(string viewPath, object model) { return RenderViewToStringInternal(viewPath, model, true); } public static string RenderView(string viewPath, object model, ControllerContext controllerContext) { ViewRenderer renderer = new ViewRenderer(controllerContext); return renderer.RenderView(viewPath, model); } public static string RenderPartialView(string viewPath, object model, ControllerContext controllerContext) { ViewRenderer renderer = new ViewRenderer(controllerContext); return renderer.RenderPartialView(viewPath, model); } protected string RenderViewToStringInternal(string viewPath, object model, bool partial = false) { // first find the ViewEngine for this view ViewEngineResult viewEngineResult = null; if (partial) viewEngineResult = ViewEngines.Engines.FindPartialView(Context, viewPath); else viewEngineResult = ViewEngines.Engines.FindView(Context, viewPath, null); if (viewEngineResult == null) throw new FileNotFoundException(Properties.Resources.ViewCouldNotBeFound); // get the view and attach the model to view data var view = viewEngineResult.View; Context.Controller.ViewData.Model = model; string result = null; using (var sw = new StringWriter()) { var ctx = new ViewContext(Context, view, Context.Controller.ViewData, Context.Controller.TempData, sw); view.Render(ctx, sw); result = sw.ToString(); } return result; } } The key is the RenderViewToStringInternal method. The method first tries to find the view to render based on its path which can either be in the current controller's view path or the shared view path using its simple name (PasswordRecovery) or alternately by its full virtual path (~/Views/Templates/PasswordRecovery.cshtml). This code should work both for Razor and WebForms views although I've only tried it with Razor Views. Note that WebForms Views might actually be better for plain text as Razor adds all sorts of white space into its output when there are code blocks in the template. The Web Forms engine provides more accurate rendering for raw text scenarios. Once a view engine is found the view to render can be retrieved. Views in MVC render based on data that comes off the controller like the ViewData which contains the model along with the actual ViewData and ViewBag. From the View and some of the Context data a ViewContext is created which is then used to render the view with. The View picks up the Model and other data from the ViewContext internally and processes the View the same it would be processed if it were to send its output into the HTTP output stream. The difference is that we can override the ViewContext's output stream which we provide and capture into a StringWriter(). After rendering completes the result holds the output string. If an error occurs the error behavior is similar what you see with regular MVC errors - you get a full yellow screen of death including the view error information with the line of error highlighted. It's your responsibility to handle the error - or let it bubble up to your regular Controller Error filter if you have one. To use the simple class you only need a single line of code if you call the static methods. Here's an example of some Controller code that is used to send a user notification to a customer via email in one of my applications:[HttpPost] public ActionResult ContactSeller(ContactSellerViewModel model) { InitializeViewModel(model); var entryBus = new busEntry(); var entry = entryBus.LoadByDisplayId(model.EntryId); if ( string.IsNullOrEmpty(model.Email) ) entryBus.ValidationErrors.Add("Email address can't be empty.","Email"); if ( string.IsNullOrEmpty(model.Message)) entryBus.ValidationErrors.Add("Message can't be empty.","Message"); model.EntryId = entry.DisplayId; model.EntryTitle = entry.Title; if (entryBus.ValidationErrors.Count > 0) { ErrorDisplay.AddMessages(entryBus.ValidationErrors); ErrorDisplay.ShowError("Please correct the following:"); } else { string message = ViewRenderer.RenderView("~/views/template/ContactSellerEmail.cshtml",model, ControllerContext); string title = entry.Title + " (" + entry.DisplayId + ") - " + App.Configuration.ApplicationName; AppUtils.SendEmail(title, message, model.Email, entry.User.Email, false, false)) } return View(model); } Simple! The view in this case is just a plain MVC view and in this case it's a very simple plain text email message (edited for brevity here) that is created and sent off:@model ContactSellerViewModel @{ Layout = null; }re: @Model.EntryTitle @Model.ListingUrl @Model.Message ** SECURITY ADVISORY - AVOID SCAMS ** Avoid: wiring money, cross-border deals, work-at-home ** Beware: cashier checks, money orders, escrow, shipping ** More Info: @(App.Configuration.ApplicationBaseUrl)scams.html Obviously this is a very simple view (I edited out more from this page to keep it brief) - but other template views are much more complex HTML documents or long messages that are occasionally updated and they are a perfect fit for Razor rendering. It even works with nested partial views and _layout pages. Partial Rendering Notice that I'm rendering a full View here. In the view I explicitly set the Layout=null to avoid pulling in _layout.cshtml for this view. This can also be controlled externally by calling the RenderPartial method instead: string message = ViewRenderer.RenderPartialView("~/views/template/ContactSellerEmail.cshtml",model, ControllerContext); with this line of code no layout page (or _viewstart) will be loaded, so the output generated is just what's in the view. I find myself using Partials most of the time when rendering templates, since the target of templates usually tend to be emails or other HTML fragment like output, so the RenderPartialView() method is definitely useful to me. Rendering without a ControllerContext The preceding class is great when you're need template rendering from within MVC controller actions or anywhere where you have access to the request Controller. But if you don't have a controller context handy - maybe inside a utility function that is static, a non-Web application, or an operation that runs asynchronously in ASP.NET - which makes using the above code impossible. I haven't found a way to manually create a Controller context to provide the ViewContext() what it needs from outside of the MVC infrastructure. However, there are ways to accomplish this, but they are a bit more complex. It's possible to host the RazorEngine on your own, which side steps all of the MVC framework and HTTP and just deals with the raw rendering engine. I wrote about this process in Hosting the Razor Engine in Non-Web Applications a long while back. It's quite a process to create a custom Razor engine and runtime, but it allows for all sorts of flexibility. There's also a RazorEngine CodePlex project that does something similar. I've been meaning to check out the latter but haven't gotten around to it since I have my own code to do this. The trick to hosting the RazorEngine to have it behave properly inside of an ASP.NET application and properly cache content so templates aren't constantly rebuild and reparsed. Anyway, in the same app as above I have one scenario where no ControllerContext is available: I have a background scheduler running inside of the app that fires on timed intervals. This process could be external but because it's lightweight we decided to fire it right inside of the ASP.NET app on a separate thread. In my app the code that renders these templates does something like this:var model = new SearchNotificationViewModel() { Entries = entries, Notification = notification, User = user }; // TODO: Need logging for errors sending string razorError = null; var result = AppUtils.RenderRazorTemplate("~/views/template/SearchNotificationTemplate.cshtml", model, razorError); which references a couple of helper functions that set up my RazorFolderHostContainer class:public static string RenderRazorTemplate(string virtualPath, object model,string errorMessage = null) { var razor = AppUtils.CreateRazorHost(); var path = virtualPath.Replace("~/", "").Replace("~", "").Replace("/", "\\"); var merged = razor.RenderTemplateToString(path, model); if (merged == null) errorMessage = razor.ErrorMessage; return merged; } /// <summary> /// Creates a RazorStringHostContainer and starts it /// Call .Stop() when you're done with it. /// /// This is a static instance /// </summary> /// <param name="virtualPath"></param> /// <param name="binBasePath"></param> /// <param name="forceLoad"></param> /// <returns></returns> public static RazorFolderHostContainer CreateRazorHost(string binBasePath = null, bool forceLoad = false) { if (binBasePath == null) { if (HttpContext.Current != null) binBasePath = HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath("~/"); else binBasePath = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory; } if (_RazorHost == null || forceLoad) { if (!binBasePath.EndsWith("\\")) binBasePath += "\\"; //var razor = new RazorStringHostContainer(); var razor = new RazorFolderHostContainer(); razor.TemplatePath = binBasePath; binBasePath += "bin\\"; razor.BaseBinaryFolder = binBasePath; razor.UseAppDomain = false; razor.ReferencedAssemblies.Add(binBasePath + "ClassifiedsBusiness.dll"); razor.ReferencedAssemblies.Add(binBasePath + "ClassifiedsWeb.dll"); razor.ReferencedAssemblies.Add(binBasePath + "Westwind.Utilities.dll"); razor.ReferencedAssemblies.Add(binBasePath + "Westwind.Web.dll"); razor.ReferencedAssemblies.Add(binBasePath + "Westwind.Web.Mvc.dll"); razor.ReferencedAssemblies.Add("System.Web.dll"); razor.ReferencedNamespaces.Add("System.Web"); razor.ReferencedNamespaces.Add("ClassifiedsBusiness"); razor.ReferencedNamespaces.Add("ClassifiedsWeb"); razor.ReferencedNamespaces.Add("Westwind.Web"); razor.ReferencedNamespaces.Add("Westwind.Utilities"); _RazorHost = razor; _RazorHost.Start(); //_RazorHost.Engine.Configuration.CompileToMemory = false; } return _RazorHost; } The RazorFolderHostContainer essentially is a full runtime that mimics a folder structure like a typical Web app does including caching semantics and compiling code only if code changes on disk. It maps a folder hierarchy to views using the ~/ path syntax. The host is then configured to add assemblies and namespaces. Unfortunately the engine is not exactly like MVC's Razor - the expression expansion and code execution are the same, but some of the support methods like sections, helpers etc. are not all there so templates have to be a bit simpler. There are other folder hosts provided as well to directly execute templates from strings (using RazorStringHostContainer). The following is an example of an HTML email template @inherits RazorHosting.RazorTemplateFolderHost <ClassifiedsWeb.SearchNotificationViewModel> <html> <head> <title>Search Notifications</title> <style> body { margin: 5px;font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 10pt;} h3 { color: SteelBlue; } .entry-item { border-bottom: 1px solid grey; padding: 8px; margin-bottom: 5px; } </style> </head> <body> Hello @Model.User.Name,<br /> <p>Below are your Search Results for the search phrase:</p> <h3>@Model.Notification.SearchPhrase</h3> <small>since @TimeUtils.ShortDateString(Model.Notification.LastSearch)</small> <hr /> You can see that the syntax is a little different. Instead of the familiar @model header the raw Razor @inherits tag is used to specify the template base class (which you can extend). I took a quick look through the feature set of RazorEngine on CodePlex (now Github I guess) and the template implementation they use is closer to MVC's razor but there are other differences. In the end don't expect exact behavior like MVC templates if you use an external Razor rendering engine. This is not what I would consider an ideal solution, but it works well enough for this project. My biggest concern is the overhead of hosting a second razor engine in a Web app and the fact that here the differences in template rendering between 'real' MVC Razor views and another RazorEngine really are noticeable. You win some, you lose some It's extremely nice to see that if you have a ControllerContext handy (which probably addresses 99% of Web app scenarios) rendering a view to string using the native MVC Razor engine is pretty simple. Kudos on making that happen - as it solves a problem I see in just about every Web application I work on. But it is a bummer that a ControllerContext is required to make this simple code work. It'd be really sweet if there was a way to render views without being so closely coupled to the ASP.NET or MVC infrastructure that requires a ControllerContext. Alternately it'd be nice to have a way for an MVC based application to create a minimal ControllerContext from scratch - maybe somebody's been down that path. I tried for a few hours to come up with a way to make that work but gave up in the soup of nested contexts (MVC/Controller/View/Http). I suspect going down this path would be similar to hosting the ASP.NET runtime requiring a WorkerRequest. Brrr…. The sad part is that it seems to me that a View should really not require much 'context' of any kind to render output to string. Yes there are a few things that clearly are required like paths to the virtual and possibly the disk paths to the root of the app, but beyond that view rendering should not require much. But, no such luck. For now custom RazorHosting seems to be the only way to make Razor rendering go outside of the MVC context… Resources Full ViewRenderer.cs source code from Westwind.Web.Mvc library Hosting the Razor Engine for Non-Web Applications RazorEngine on GitHub© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in ASP.NET ASP.NET MVC Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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How to create Custom ListForm WebPart

- by DipeshBhanani

Mostly all who works extensively on SharePoint (including meJ) don’t like to use out-of-box list forms (DispForm.aspx, EditForm.aspx, NewForm.aspx) as interface. Actually these OOB list forms bind hands of developers for the customization. It gives headache to developers to add just one post back event, for a dropdown field and to populate other fields in NewForm.aspx or EditForm.aspx. On top of that clients always ask such stuff. So here I am going to give you guys a flight for SharePoint Customization world. In this blog, I will explain, how to create CustomListForm WebPart. In my next blogs, I am going to explain easy deployment of List Forms through features and last, guidance on using SharePoint web controls. 1. First thing, create a class library project through Visual Studio and inherit the class with WebPart class. public class CustomListForm : WebPart 2. Declare the public variables and properties which we are going to use throughout the class. You will get to know these once you see them in use. #region "Variable Declaration" Table spTableCntl; FormToolBar formToolBar; Literal ltAlertMessage; Guid SiteId; Guid ListId; int ItemId; string ListName; #endregion #region "Properties" SPControlMode _ControlMode = SPControlMode.New; [Personalizable(PersonalizationScope.Shared), WebBrowsable(true), WebDisplayName("Control Mode"), WebDescription("Set Control Mode"), DefaultValue(""), Category("Miscellaneous")] public SPControlMode ControlMode { get { return _ControlMode; } set { _ControlMode = value; } } #endregion The property “ControlMode” is used to identify the mode of the List Form. The property is of type SPControlMode which is an enum type with values (Display, Edit, New and Invalid). When we will add this WebPart to DispForm.aspx, EditForm.aspx and NewForm.aspx, we will set the WebPart property “ControlMode” to Display, Edit and New respectively. 3. Now, we need to override the CreateChildControl method and write code to manually add SharePoint Web Controls related to each list fields as well as ToolBar controls. protected override void CreateChildControls() { base.CreateChildControls(); try { SiteId = SPContext.Current.Site.ID; ListId = SPContext.Current.ListId; ListName = SPContext.Current.List.Title; if (_ControlMode == SPControlMode.Display || _ControlMode == SPControlMode.Edit) ItemId = SPContext.Current.ItemId; SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges(delegate() { using (SPSite site = new SPSite(SiteId)) { //creating a new SPSite with credentials of System Account using (SPWeb web = site.OpenWeb()) { //<Custom Code for creating form controls> } } }); } catch (Exception ex) { ShowError(ex, "CreateChildControls"); } } Here we are assuming that we are developing this WebPart to plug into List Forms. Hence we will get the List Id and List Name from the current context. We can have Item Id only in case of Display and Edit Mode. We are putting our code into “RunWithElevatedPrivileges” to elevate privileges to System Account. Now, let’s get deep down into the main code and expand “//<Custom Code for creating form controls>”. Before initiating any SharePoint control, we need to set context of SharePoint web controls explicitly so that it will be instantiated with elevated System Account user. Following line does the job. //To create SharePoint controls with new web object and System Account credentials SPControl.SetContextWeb(Context, web); First thing, let’s add main table as container for all controls. //Table to render webpart Table spTableMain = new Table(); spTableMain.CellPadding = 0; spTableMain.CellSpacing = 0; spTableMain.Width = new Unit(100, UnitType.Percentage); this.Controls.Add(spTableMain); Now we need to add Top toolbar with Save and Cancel button at top as you see in the below screen shot. // Add Row and Cell for Top ToolBar TableRow spRowTopToolBar = new TableRow(); spTableMain.Rows.Add(spRowTopToolBar); TableCell spCellTopToolBar = new TableCell(); spRowTopToolBar.Cells.Add(spCellTopToolBar); spCellTopToolBar.Width = new Unit(100, UnitType.Percentage); ToolBar toolBarTop = (ToolBar)Page.LoadControl("/_controltemplates/ToolBar.ascx"); toolBarTop.CssClass = "ms-formtoolbar"; toolBarTop.ID = "toolBarTbltop"; toolBarTop.RightButtons.SeparatorHtml = "<td class=ms-separator> </td>"; if (_ControlMode != SPControlMode.Display) { SaveButton btnSave = new SaveButton(); btnSave.ControlMode = _ControlMode; btnSave.ListId = ListId; if (_ControlMode == SPControlMode.New) btnSave.RenderContext = SPContext.GetContext(web); else { btnSave.RenderContext = SPContext.GetContext(this.Context, ItemId, ListId, web); btnSave.ItemContext = SPContext.GetContext(this.Context, ItemId, ListId, web); btnSave.ItemId = ItemId; } toolBarTop.RightButtons.Controls.Add(btnSave); } GoBackButton goBackButtonTop = new GoBackButton(); toolBarTop.RightButtons.Controls.Add(goBackButtonTop); goBackButtonTop.ControlMode = SPControlMode.Display; spCellTopToolBar.Controls.Add(toolBarTop); Here we have use “SaveButton” and “GoBackButton” which are internal SharePoint web controls for save and cancel functionality. I have set some of the properties of Save Button with if-else condition because we will not have Item Id in case of New Mode. Item Id property is used to identify which SharePoint List Item need to be saved. Now, add Form Toolbar to the page which contains “Attach File”, “Delete Item” etc buttons. // Add Row and Cell for FormToolBar TableRow spRowFormToolBar = new TableRow(); spTableMain.Rows.Add(spRowFormToolBar); TableCell spCellFormToolBar = new TableCell(); spRowFormToolBar.Cells.Add(spCellFormToolBar); spCellFormToolBar.Width = new Unit(100, UnitType.Percentage); FormToolBar formToolBar = new FormToolBar(); formToolBar.ID = "formToolBar"; formToolBar.ListId = ListId; if (_ControlMode == SPControlMode.New) formToolBar.RenderContext = SPContext.GetContext(web); else { formToolBar.RenderContext = SPContext.GetContext(this.Context, ItemId, ListId, web); formToolBar.ItemContext = SPContext.GetContext(this.Context, ItemId, ListId, web); formToolBar.ItemId = ItemId; } formToolBar.ControlMode = _ControlMode; formToolBar.EnableViewState = true; spCellFormToolBar.Controls.Add(formToolBar); The ControlMode property will take care of which button to be displayed on the toolbar. E.g. “Attach files”, “Delete Item” in new/edit forms and “New Item”, “Edit Item”, “Delete Item”, “Manage Permissions” etc in display forms. Now add main section which contains form field controls. //Create Form Field controls and add them in Table "spCellCntl" CreateFieldControls(web); //Add public variable "spCellCntl" containing all form controls to the page spRowCntl.Cells.Add(spCellCntl); spCellCntl.Width = new Unit(100, UnitType.Percentage); spCellCntl.Controls.Add(spTableCntl); //Add a Blank Row with height of 5px to render space between ToolBar table and Control table TableRow spRowLine1 = new TableRow(); spTableMain.Rows.Add(spRowLine1); TableCell spCellLine1 = new TableCell(); spRowLine1.Cells.Add(spCellLine1); spCellLine1.Height = new Unit(5, UnitType.Pixel); spCellLine1.Controls.Add(new LiteralControl("<IMG SRC='/_layouts/images/blank.gif' width=1 height=1 alt=''>")); //Add Row and Cell for Form Controls Section TableRow spRowCntl = new TableRow(); spTableMain.Rows.Add(spRowCntl); TableCell spCellCntl = new TableCell(); //Create Form Field controls and add them in Table "spCellCntl" CreateFieldControls(web); //Add public variable "spCellCntl" containing all form controls to the page spRowCntl.Cells.Add(spCellCntl); spCellCntl.Width = new Unit(100, UnitType.Percentage); spCellCntl.Controls.Add(spTableCntl); TableRow spRowLine2 = new TableRow(); spTableMain.Rows.Add(spRowLine2); TableCell spCellLine2 = new TableCell(); spRowLine2.Cells.Add(spCellLine2); spCellLine2.CssClass = "ms-formline"; spCellLine2.Controls.Add(new LiteralControl("<IMG SRC='/_layouts/images/blank.gif' width=1 height=1 alt=''>")); // Add Blank row with height of 5 pixel TableRow spRowLine3 = new TableRow(); spTableMain.Rows.Add(spRowLine3); TableCell spCellLine3 = new TableCell(); spRowLine3.Cells.Add(spCellLine3); spCellLine3.Height = new Unit(5, UnitType.Pixel); spCellLine3.Controls.Add(new LiteralControl("<IMG SRC='/_layouts/images/blank.gif' width=1 height=1 alt=''>")); You can add bottom toolbar also to get same look and feel as OOB forms. I am not adding here as the blog will be much lengthy. At last, you need to write following lines to allow unsafe updates for Save and Delete button. // Allow unsafe update on web for save button and delete button if (this.Page.IsPostBack && this.Page.Request["__EventTarget"] != null && (this.Page.Request["__EventTarget"].Contains("IOSaveItem") || this.Page.Request["__EventTarget"].Contains("IODeleteItem"))) { SPContext.Current.Web.AllowUnsafeUpdates = true; } So that’s all. We have finished writing Custom Code for adding field control. But something most important is skipped. In above code, I have called function “CreateFieldControls(web);” to add SharePoint field controls to the page. Let’s see the implementation of the function: private void CreateFieldControls(SPWeb pWeb) { SPList listMain = pWeb.Lists[ListId]; SPFieldCollection fields = listMain.Fields; //Main Table to render all fields spTableCntl = new Table(); spTableCntl.BorderWidth = new Unit(0); spTableCntl.CellPadding = 0; spTableCntl.CellSpacing = 0; spTableCntl.Width = new Unit(100, UnitType.Percentage); spTableCntl.CssClass = "ms-formtable"; SPContext controlContext = SPContext.GetContext(this.Context, ItemId, ListId, pWeb); foreach (SPField listField in fields) { string fieldDisplayName = listField.Title; string fieldInternalName = listField.InternalName; //Skip if the field is system field or hidden if (listField.Hidden || listField.ShowInVersionHistory == false) continue; //Skip if the control mode is display and field is read-only if (_ControlMode != SPControlMode.Display && listField.ReadOnlyField == true) continue; FieldLabel fieldLabel = new FieldLabel(); fieldLabel.FieldName = listField.InternalName; fieldLabel.ListId = ListId; BaseFieldControl fieldControl = listField.FieldRenderingControl; fieldControl.ListId = ListId; //Assign unique id using Field Internal Name fieldControl.ID = string.Format("Field_{0}", fieldInternalName); fieldControl.EnableViewState = true; //Assign control mode fieldLabel.ControlMode = _ControlMode; fieldControl.ControlMode = _ControlMode; switch (_ControlMode) { case SPControlMode.New: fieldLabel.RenderContext = SPContext.GetContext(pWeb); fieldControl.RenderContext = SPContext.GetContext(pWeb); break; case SPControlMode.Edit: case SPControlMode.Display: fieldLabel.RenderContext = controlContext; fieldLabel.ItemContext = controlContext; fieldLabel.ItemId = ItemId; fieldControl.RenderContext = controlContext; fieldControl.ItemContext = controlContext; fieldControl.ItemId = ItemId; break; } //Add row to display a field row TableRow spCntlRow = new TableRow(); spTableCntl.Rows.Add(spCntlRow); //Add the cells for containing field lable and control TableCell spCellLabel = new TableCell(); spCellLabel.Width = new Unit(30, UnitType.Percentage); spCellLabel.CssClass = "ms-formlabel"; spCntlRow.Cells.Add(spCellLabel); TableCell spCellControl = new TableCell(); spCellControl.Width = new Unit(70, UnitType.Percentage); spCellControl.CssClass = "ms-formbody"; spCntlRow.Cells.Add(spCellControl); //Add the control to the table cells spCellLabel.Controls.Add(fieldLabel); spCellControl.Controls.Add(fieldControl); //Add description if there is any in case of New and Edit Mode if (_ControlMode != SPControlMode.Display && listField.Description != string.Empty) { FieldDescription fieldDesc = new FieldDescription(); fieldDesc.FieldName = fieldInternalName; fieldDesc.ListId = ListId; spCellControl.Controls.Add(fieldDesc); } //Disable Name(Title) in Edit Mode if (_ControlMode == SPControlMode.Edit && fieldDisplayName == "Name") { TextBox txtTitlefield = (TextBox)fieldControl.Controls[0].FindControl("TextField"); txtTitlefield.Enabled = false; } } fields = null; } First of all, I have declared List object and got list fields in field collection object called “fields”. Then I have added a table for the container of all controls and assign CSS class as "ms-formtable" so that it gives consistent look and feel of SharePoint. Now it’s time to navigate through all fields and add them if required. Here we don’t need to add hidden or system fields. We also don’t want to display read-only fields in new and edit forms. Following lines does this job. //Skip if the field is system field or hidden if (listField.Hidden || listField.ShowInVersionHistory == false) continue; //Skip if the control mode is display and field is read-only if (_ControlMode != SPControlMode.Display && listField.ReadOnlyField == true) continue; Let’s move to the next line of code. FieldLabel fieldLabel = new FieldLabel(); fieldLabel.FieldName = listField.InternalName; fieldLabel.ListId = ListId; BaseFieldControl fieldControl = listField.FieldRenderingControl; fieldControl.ListId = ListId; //Assign unique id using Field Internal Name fieldControl.ID = string.Format("Field_{0}", fieldInternalName); fieldControl.EnableViewState = true; //Assign control mode fieldLabel.ControlMode = _ControlMode; fieldControl.ControlMode = _ControlMode; We have used “FieldLabel” control for displaying field title. The advantage of using Field Label is, SharePoint automatically adds red star besides field label to identify it as mandatory field if there is any. Here is most important part to understand. The “BaseFieldControl”. It will render the respective web controls according to type of the field. For example, if it’s single line of text, then Textbox, if it’s look up then it renders dropdown. Additionally, the “ControlMode” property tells compiler that which mode (display/edit/new) controls need to be rendered with. In display mode, it will render label with field value. In edit mode, it will render respective control with item value and in new mode it will render respective control with empty value. Please note that, it’s not always the case when dropdown field will be rendered for Lookup field or Choice field. You need to understand which controls are rendered for which list fields. I am planning to write a separate blog which I hope to publish it very soon. Moreover, we also need to assign list field specific properties like List Id, Field Name etc to identify which SharePoint List field is attached with the control. switch (_ControlMode) { case SPControlMode.New: fieldLabel.RenderContext = SPContext.GetContext(pWeb); fieldControl.RenderContext = SPContext.GetContext(pWeb); break; case SPControlMode.Edit: case SPControlMode.Display: fieldLabel.RenderContext = controlContext; fieldLabel.ItemContext = controlContext; fieldLabel.ItemId = ItemId; fieldControl.RenderContext = controlContext; fieldControl.ItemContext = controlContext; fieldControl.ItemId = ItemId; break; } Here, I have separate code for new mode and Edit/Display mode because we will not have Item Id to assign in New Mode. We also need to set CSS class for cell containing Label and Controls so that those controls get rendered with SharePoint theme. spCellLabel.CssClass = "ms-formlabel"; spCellControl.CssClass = "ms-formbody"; “FieldDescription” control is used to add field description if there is any. Now it’s time to add some more customization, //Disable Name(Title) in Edit Mode if (_ControlMode == SPControlMode.Edit && fieldDisplayName == "Name") { TextBox txtTitlefield = (TextBox)fieldControl.Controls[0].FindControl("TextField"); txtTitlefield.Enabled = false; } The above code will disable the title field in edit mode. You can add more code here to achieve more customization according to your requirement. Some of the examples are as follow: //Adding post back event on UserField to auto populate some other dependent field //in new mode and disable it in edit mode if (_ControlMode != SPControlMode.Display && fieldDisplayName == "Manager") { if (fieldControl.Controls[0].FindControl("UserField") != null) { PeopleEditor pplEditor = (PeopleEditor)fieldControl.Controls[0].FindControl("UserField"); if (_ControlMode == SPControlMode.New) pplEditor.AutoPostBack = true; else pplEditor.Enabled = false; } } //Add JavaScript Event on Dropdown field. Don't forget to add the JavaScript function on the page. if (_ControlMode == SPControlMode.Edit && fieldDisplayName == "Designation") { DropDownList ddlCategory = (DropDownList)fieldControl.Controls[0]; ddlCategory.Attributes.Add("onchange", string.Format("javascript:DropdownChangeEvent('{0}');return false;", ddlCategory.ClientID)); } Following are the screenshots of my Custom ListForm WebPart. Let’s play a game, check out your OOB List forms of SharePoint, compare with these screens and find out differences. DispForm.aspx: EditForm.aspx: NewForm.aspx: Enjoy the SharePoint Soup!!!

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