Linking body, bgcolor"<%%>" to database

brettdalldorf · June 13th, 2005, 10:57 AM

Hi all!

I am just starting out in ASP.Net using C# and I am loving it. My problem is that my client wants to be able to change the background colour of the page by adjusting values in database table.

I have already linked my repeater table colours to the database table:
bgcolor='<%#DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem, "TableHeader") %>' that was easy enough. So how is this done without using a web control in the html code.

This is where I need the database to link "<body bgcolor="<%%>">"
I know this is quite simple, but I have searched high and low and cant find any info on it.

Any help will be appreciated
Thanks
Brett

planoie · June 13th, 2005, 01:43 PM

My recommendation is to make your body tag runat="server", then you can adjust whatever properties you wish. You'll need to define the body tag in the code-behind as an HtmlGenericControl:

<body runat="server" id="tagBody">
...
Protected tagBody As HtmlGenericControl
...
tagBody.Attributes("bgcolor") = "#FF0000"

-Peter

brettdalldorf · June 15th, 2005, 10:43 AM

Thanks for the prompt reply Peter! I struggled with it for a while, but then when I changed the tagBody.Attributes("bgcolor") to tagBody.Attributes["bgcolor"] it worked! So how do I link this to a field in the database. for example [ColourScheme].[Background]

Brett

planoie · June 15th, 2005, 01:08 PM

You need to select the data from the database and assign it to that attribute value instead of assigning a literal string value. Presumably you have already gotten database retrievals working in order to work with the repeate you described in the earlier post.

-Peter

brettdalldorf · June 16th, 2005, 07:39 AM

Hi Peter

I am having trouble assigning that attribute, when I use the following code,

tagBody.Attributes["bgcolor"]= DataSet2.Tables["ColourScheme"].ToString();

it just displays: <BODY bgcolor="Colourscheme" > it seems to be just reading whats in the parethesis and displaying that.

Your help is appriciated, I am really learning a lot.

Thanks
Brett

planoie · June 16th, 2005, 10:01 AM

That's because the ToString method of a datatable is the name of the table.

You need to be more specific with your data reference and provide a column:

DataSet2.Tables["ColourScheme"]["ColorChoiceColumn"].ToString();

-Peter

brettdalldorf · June 16th, 2005, 10:59 AM

I added the column name:

tagBody.Attributes["bgcolor"] = DataSet2.Tables["ColourScheme"].["PageBackground"].ToString();

But I recieved this error message:

Compiler Error Message: CS1001: Identifier expected

Brett

planoie · June 17th, 2005, 07:55 AM

My bad, I overlooked the row collection:

DataSet2.Tables["ColourScheme"].Rows[0]["PageBackground"].ToString();

-Peter