Another annoying Microsoft helper

katsarosj · December 30th, 2004, 03:43 PM

I have my "title" tag set to runat=server in my HTML code. Then I added an HTMLGenericControl to my codebehind to correspond to my "title" so I can set some of it's properties based upon values pulled from a database.

Every so often when I change a web control's property in the designer the runat=server attribute disappears from the "title" tag in the HTML code.

I am sure that this is Microsoft's way of "helping" me out (even though it causes my app to throw an error), but does anyone know specifically why this may be happening?

Thanks.

J

Imar · December 31st, 2004, 05:41 AM

I think you should ask Microsoft to find out the exact reason, but my guess is that the runat attribute isn't in the "official" scheme that VS.NET uses internally.

So, when the page code is "optimized" / rewritten / changed / whatever, this attribute is simply forgotten and not added to the title tag anymore.

IMO, the Design View of the designer in VS.NET is almost useless. It rewrites code, expands shorthand CSS, changes tags and attributes to uppercase, removes attributes, reformats the code etc etc etc. This makes it impossible to use Design View with any but the most trivial pages.

I am really looking forward to Visual Studio .NET 2005 where you can round-trip between Code and Design View without the loss of work. Finally, after 8 years or so..... ;) (Frontpage, Visual Interdev, the MSIE HTML Editing Control etc etc all suffer from the same problem.)

Cheers,

Imar
---------------------------------------
Imar Spaanjaars
Everyone is unique, except for me.

katsarosj · January 4th, 2005, 01:37 AM

Thanks Imar. I was ringing in the New Year or I would have responded sooner. That sounds like a pretty good explanation to me about the runat attribute, but it just seems weird that it only does it randomly.

I also agree about the Design view. I guess I really only use it when I want to quickly change a property and don't want to wade through the HTML. I have some pages that get pretty long on the HTML and it is sometimes easier to just click it in Design view and change the property there.

J

Imar · January 4th, 2005, 05:17 PM

I *think* it doesn't do it randomly. From my experience, it does it only when you add something to the Design Surface, so a rewrite / refresh of the code is necessary. If you switch to Design View and mack again, everything stays in tact.

Wait for VS.NET 2005. It has Design View / Code View round tripping without messing up the code. Also, the runat attribute is now supported on the <head> tags, so you have programmatic access to the head section of your page.

Cheers,

Imar
---------------------------------------
Imar Spaanjaars
Everyone is unique, except for me.
While typing this post, I was listening to: Dangerous by Hed Planet Earth (Track 4 from the album: Blackout ) What's This?

planoie · January 6th, 2005, 11:38 PM

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by Imar
...changes tags and attributes to uppercase...

Tools -> Options -> Text Editor -> HTML/XML -> Format

There you can shut off auto formatting when switching modes and set capitalization to be "As Entered", "Uppercase" or "Lowercase" for both tags and attributes.

katsarosj · January 6th, 2005, 11:49 PM

Thanks. Does this turn off the paragraph indentation as well for the HTML? That is actually a feature that I like.

J

Imar · January 7th, 2005, 03:14 AM

These settings are there, but do not always work as expected. In theory they should do what they promise, but you'll find your code messed up anyway when you switch between code and design view...

Imar

planoie · January 7th, 2005, 10:57 AM

katsarosj-

Indentation is mainted as expected

katsarosj · January 7th, 2005, 11:49 AM

Thanks to both of you. I will give it a try cross my fingers that I don't have the problems that Imar was referring to.

J

katsarosj · January 7th, 2005, 04:14 PM

Just a follow up. Turning off autoformatting did not work.

J