Nested Container control binding

gmandrsn · #1 (**permalink**) July 7th, 2009, 02:20 PM

I am using the AjaxControlToolkit and I have several controls that are inside a TabPanel, within a TabContainer. The TabContainer is in a Panel, which is nested in a DataList. (see aspx code below).
The Datalist contains my DataRow, and I need to figure out how to access the DataList to set values in the Tabs child controls from the aspx. Somehting like "Container.Parent.Parent.Container.DataItem" or "Container.Container.DataItem"

Code:

<DataListID="AL"runat="server"DataKeyField="RefNumber"Width="100%">
<ItemTemplate>
   <PanelID="AP"runat="server"GroupingText="Address"CssClass="Addr">
    <TabContainerID="ATS"runat="server">
          <TabPanelID="MemA"runat="server"HeaderText="Member">
             <ContentTemplate>                   <p>
                  <LabelID="HPhLbl"Text="Home"runat="server"Width="75px"/>
                  <TextBoxID="HPh"runat="server"Text=' <%# ((DataRowView)Container.DataItem)["HomePhone"] %> ' />
               </p>

Prior to adding the tabstrip everything loaded correctly, I justneed to understand how to assign values from a Datalist to controls, several containers deep.

Thanks!

chroniclemaster1 · #2 (**permalink**) July 13th, 2009, 11:58 PM

I've tried to build some controls similarly using nested repeaters and had problems, I'm guessing for the same reasons. Somebody mentioned using the FindControl method, but that just threw different errors. I returned for more insight, but all I got was "FindControl is evil, so don't use it. It's bad practice." Unfortunately there was no explanation why or what to use instead.

I'm hoping we can both get some answers here. ;)

gmandrsn · #3 (**permalink**) July 14th, 2009, 10:53 AM

FindControl can work when drilling down, but it is not recursive, it only looks in the container in which you call it from, and recursively calling it from the page level would be bad. In this case I'm trying to figure out a way to drill "up" to parent/grand parent/... naming containers. So I hope some one does reply who know the answer.

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