I would like to use standard ASP.NET controls like Gridview, Textbox, etc. rather the custom girdview mentioned in the book in Chapter 4. How would I invoke methods directly from BLL and DAL classes to get data listed on the standard gridview? In other words, if I don't want to use BasePage and BaseEditPage, is there a direct way to invoke entities in the codes behind of aspx pages? If so, please show me an example or sample.

I want to do something in Page_load method like:

ENTUserAccountEO userAccount = new ENTUserAccount();

txtWindowsAccount.Text = userAccount.WindowsAccountName

.....

I truly appreciate your help.

You would still need to inherit from the BasePage. Doing so will not prevent you from using a standard control.

Follow the standard pattern presented in the book and instead of invoking the cgv that is there add your gridview from the toolbox and build it in codebehind.
Since you are not binding anything to the cgv it will never populate with data and it shouldnt render either.

Let me know if this helps or if you need further help.

Thank you for your reply!

Could you please clarify further for me? I follow the the standard pattern, but I can't get it working. I have a user table, and I want to get the list of users shown on the standard gridview. My code is below.

public partial class test : BasePage
{
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{

tblUserEOList myUser = new tblUserEOList();
gvUserList.DataSource = myUser.LoadData();
gvUserList.DataBind();

}
}

I received an error "cannot implicitly convert type void to object" at the line gvUserList.DataSource = myUser.LoadData().

I don't quite understand how I can invoke methods from BLL directly in UI layer using standard ASP.NET controls. Should I need to implement the LoadScreenFromObject and LoadObjectFromScreen methods? Chapter 4 is little difficult to follow.

Thanks for your help in advance.

The LoadData method returns void. You should call the LoadData() method on a separate line and then set the gvUserList.DataSource = myUser.