I have made some progress toward creating very straight-forward UI for
editing a non-hierarchical list of data without implementing a DataGrid. The
UI needs to present the data for editing in textboxes, drop-down lists,
check boxes, and radio buttons. ASP.NET Validation controls need to be part
of this UI as well.
I arranged the editing controls in a user control which I then placed in the
ItemTemplate of a DataList control. I got the visual appearance that I was
after. However, I also ran into a number of issues - like how to populate
each repeating instance of the user control with data from one corresponding
row of data from the data source; and how to programmatically determine
during PostBack which data the user modified so I can then update the
database. While I can get a user control to repeat multiple times when
hosted in a DataList, all of the controls in it (text boxes, etc) all have
the same value for their ID. This is a problem as well.
I would appreciate any suggestions for getting this to work. Maybe I'm
wrong, but I think my remaining hurdles include: (1) populate each instance
of the user control with data from one row in the data source, and (2)
uniquely identify each instance of the user control during postback. I'm
also open to suggestions for alternative ways to get the UI described above
even if not implemented with a user control and DataList. I don't mind
writing a bunch of code if that will be required (working in C#).
Please note that I do not want to implement this functionality in a DataGrid
because (1) grids do not let me have complete control over layout (they
pretty much want to force all of the data-editing controls into one
horizontal row); (2) grids tend to generate gigantic ViewStates; and (3) The
EditItem templates available in grids and DataList controls are hidden until
the user clicks twice on the row - something obvious for those of us who are
technical, but something not intuitive for the end-users of this particular
application. I cannot assume the users will know to double-click anything in
order to get into an edit mode or to see an edit item template. The users
should be able to edit whatever they see - without clicking an "Edit"
button; and only need to click a "Save Now" button to persist their
modifications.
TIA
