Ch. 15 - AddEditReview page & preselecting genre on Insert?

Tulsi · January 31st, 2013, 02:02 PM

Hi Imar,

I noticed that the genre is not preselected to the selected genre (on reviews page) when you click on the "Insert New Review" link.

So for example, let's say u selected "Rock" on the Reviews page. The result would be a list of reviews for the "Rock" genre followed by the "Insert New Review" link. When I click on this link, would it be correct to add functionality to preselect the genre on the AddEditRevew page to "Rock"?

I tried doing this by replacing

Code:

<a href="AddEditReview.aspx">Insert New Review</a>

to

Code:

<asp:HyperLink runat="server" Text="Insert New Review" NavigateUrl='<% "~/Management/AddEditReviewHandcoded.aspx?GenreId=" + Eval(DropDownList1.SelectedValue) %>' />

This did not work. Is there a way to do this?

Thank you.

Tulsi

Imar · February 2nd, 2013, 07:51 AM

Hi Tulsi,

You can set the URL in Code Behind when the genre changes:

Code:

protected void DropDownList1_SelectedIndexChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
  NewReview.NavigateUrl = String.Format("AddEditReviewHandCoded.aspx?GenreId={0}", DropDownList1.SelectedValue);
}

with a HyperLink control like this:

Code:

<asp:HyperLink ID="NewReview" runat="server">Insert New Review</asp:HyperLink>

Hope this helps,

Imar

Tulsi · February 4th, 2013, 11:57 AM

Hi Imar,

This worked great! Only thing is that I needed to add

Code:

InsertHyperLink.NavigateUrl = "~/ManageMent/AddEditReview.aspx";

in the page_load for Revews.aspx

to handle the case where no genre was selected. Is this the best way to handle this case?

Thanks.
Tulsi

Imar · February 4th, 2013, 12:42 PM

Hi Tulsi,

>> Is this the best way to handle this case?

I think I would prefer to assign the default NavigateUrl in Mark Up:

Code:

<asp:HyperLink ID="NewReview" runat="server" NavigateUrl="~/ManageMent/AddEditReview.aspx";>Insert New Review</asp:HyperLink>

This way, it's more obvious what the default is without the need to scan the code behind.

It's just a preference though; both would work equally fine.

Cheers,

Imar

Tulsi · February 4th, 2013, 02:33 PM

Hi Imar,

Sorry for coming back to this again, but I am running into some other problems..

I'm noticing that as I try to add this new functionality, things are getting more complicated. For example, after selecting the "Insert New Review" link and passing the correct genreId in the query string, I'm trying to pre-select the genre in AddEditReiew.aspx Page_Load. But I do not have access to the genre drop down since it's embedded in the ListView control.

In the previous ex. I acessed the genre value by using e.Values["GenreId"] in the drop_down event, but not sure what to do in this case?

This made me go back to p. 554 and think of the line...

Quote:

"The final issue I often encounter when working with the data controls is that I do not have complete control over the markup they create"

. I did not completely understand this when I read it at the time, but now I think I do after running into the problem with not being able to access the drop down for genre. Is my thinking correct? Is this the type of issue you had in mind?

Also, is there a solution to this problem for the AddEditReview page, or in this case would I have to use the AddEditReviewHandCoded implementation to be able to pre-select the genre Id?

Thank you so much for all your help.

Tulsi

Imar · February 4th, 2013, 03:04 PM

Hi Tulsi,

Quote:

but not sure what to do in this case?

You can set the SelectedValue, like this:

Code:

<asp:DropDownList ID="DropDownList1" runat="server" DataSourceID="GenresDataSource" DataTextField="Name" DataValueField="Id" SelectedValue='<%# Request.QueryString.Get("GenreId") %>'>

Alternatively you can use FindControl on the DetailsView to find the DropDownList and then preselect the item. Either way, this is a bit messy and that's why I prefer the hand coded alternative for more complex pages.

Quote:

Is this the type of issue you had in mind?

Not completely. I was referring to the final HTML that gets generated by the controls. For example, the GridView generates a lot of HTML on its own, without an easy way to fully control what it generates.

The issue you ran into now could easily have been added as a fourth problem with the controls.... ;-)

Cheers

Imar

Tulsi · February 5th, 2013, 03:20 PM

Thank you again :) This was very helpful!

Tulsi