Pls some advice for Windows Forms old-hand but ASP noob

[William Sullivan]

I've spent plenty of time building windows forms, but I'm working on a web
project now. I've scanned a few ASP NET books, checked out some tutorials,
but I am unable to figure out how to lay out complex groups of controls that
need to interact with each other on a web page properly.

My main page's design includes a number of different controls. On the left
I have three groups of controls: A textbox with a button for searching (the
first group), below that a treeview (its own group), and below that a listbox
to show results from manipulating the treeview and from searches. On the
right is a pane that shows pages/documents/etc selected in the results
listbox. These two columns of controls are then sandwitched between a header
and footer that stretch across the width of the page. My windows forms
background tells me to find an analogy to the panels-with-controls layout.
Frames seem to be the logical choice. However, since each frame contains a
different page, I can't handle events where one control's event is reflected
in another control's contents as I would in a windows form (all controls are
still on the same form, which makes it as easy as this.someothercontrol.text
= "result"). Having a control's event handler in one .aspx page manipulate a
control in another page, I'm sure, is possible, but its not easy. I'm not
even sure if I should be exposing events in one page's code and handling it
in another's, but if there is a better way to do it, I don't know what it is.
None of the ASP.NET books I've looked at go into depth about complex layouts
like the one I described. Could someone please give me some hints or point
the way to some tutorials? TIA.

[Kevin Spencer]

Hi William,

You're barking up the right tree here. Check out Custom Composite Controls.

--
HTH,

Kevin Spencer
Microsoft MVP
..Net Developer
Paranoia is just a state of mind.

"William Sullivan" <Wi*************@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in
message news:45**********************************@microsof t.com...

I've spent plenty of time building windows forms, but I'm working on a web
project now. I've scanned a few ASP NET books, checked out some
tutorials,
but I am unable to figure out how to lay out complex groups of controls
that
need to interact with each other on a web page properly.

My main page's design includes a number of different controls. On the
left
I have three groups of controls: A textbox with a button for searching
(the
first group), below that a treeview (its own group), and below that a
listbox
to show results from manipulating the treeview and from searches. On the
right is a pane that shows pages/documents/etc selected in the results
listbox. These two columns of controls are then sandwitched between a
header
and footer that stretch across the width of the page. My windows forms
background tells me to find an analogy to the panels-with-controls layout.
Frames seem to be the logical choice. However, since each frame contains
a
different page, I can't handle events where one control's event is
reflected
in another control's contents as I would in a windows form (all controls
are
still on the same form, which makes it as easy as
this.someothercontrol.text
= "result"). Having a control's event handler in one .aspx page
manipulate a
control in another page, I'm sure, is possible, but its not easy. I'm not
even sure if I should be exposing events in one page's code and handling
it
in another's, but if there is a better way to do it, I don't know what it
is.
None of the ASP.NET books I've looked at go into depth about complex
layouts
like the one I described. Could someone please give me some hints or
point
the way to some tutorials? TIA.