I feel I'm not doing things correctly.

I have a <asp:DataList> embedded in a <asp:Panel> with its ScrollBars 
property set to Auto.  Essentially, I want to format a bunch of records as a 
list in an area of the screen with a fixed size, so I want a scrollbar to 
appear if I have a lot of records.  That works fine.

Each row in my list consists of three fields that come from a database:  a 
date, a title (both on the same line), and followed by a longer description 
below that first line.  Knowing that the rendered HTML contains leading 
table, tr and td tags, I've added my own tags right into the <ItemTemplate>:

<asp:DataList DataSourceID="..." >
<ItemTemplate>
        <div class="clsDate"><%# Eval("MYDATE") %></div></td>
        <td><div class="clsTitle"><%# Eval( "MYTITLE") %></div></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td colspan="2"><div class="clsDescription"><%# Eval( 
"MYDESCRIPTION" ) %></div>
</ItemTemplate>
</asp:DataList>

This lines up nicely:

Date1    Title1
Description1

Date2    Title2
Description2

Date3    Title3
Description3

The rendered output is exactly what I want (and perfectly valid HTML)...but 
I can't help but get the feeling that I'm "cheating" by embedding my own 
partial tags--eg, my first <td> tag is a terminating </td>, knowing that the 
framework will already have generated a leading <td> by then, and I don't 
supply a terminating </td> either, knowing the framework will generate the 
final </td> tag...

As far as I understand them, the DetailsView and FormView controls offer 
more layout flexibility, but are are intended for displaying a single record 
at a time.

Is my approach a common and acceptable ASP.NET 2.0 practice?  If it is, then 
so be and I'm worrying about nothing because "it works" and the rendered 
code is clean...but as much as possible, I'd like to do things the way 
you're supposed to and not hack partial tags into .aspx files (not to 
mention that it'll probably trip the WYSIWYG editor sooner or later)...

I've seen more than a few references suggesting that the DataList has been 
mostly replaced by the GridView, but as far as I can tell, this isn't going 
to work in this case because I want the description to appear on its own row 
after the date and title fields (whereas the GridView is strictly 
line-oriented).

Thoughts?

Try using <asp:Repeater /> instead. The problem with making assumptions 
about the particular output of server controls is that the output could 
potentially change in a future version, breaking your code. For example, if 
Microsoft decided to use <ul /> to display menus instead of <table />. 
Microsoft? Please? While it is unlikely that the DataGrid output will ever 
change, I still think this applies as a bad practice.

Here is an example (not tested):

<table>
  <asp:Repeater ...>
    <ItemTemplate>
      <tr>
        <td class="clsDate">
          <%# Eval("MYDATE") %>
        </td>
        <td class="clsTitle">
          <%# Eval("MYTITLE") %>
        </td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td class="clsDescription" colspan="2">
          <%# Eval("MYDESCRIPTION") %>
        </td>
      </tr>
    </ItemTemplate>
  </asp:Repeater>
</table>

This also allows you to assign classes at the <td /> level and avoid using 
redundant <div /> containers.


"Homer J. Simpson"  wrote in message 
news:eFE86A70HHA.3536@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...

>I feel I'm not doing things correctly.
>
> I have a <asp:DataList> embedded in a <asp:Panel> with its ScrollBars 
> property set to Auto.  Essentially, I want to format a bunch of records as 
> a list in an area of the screen with a fixed size, so I want a scrollbar 
> to appear if I have a lot of records.  That works fine.
>
> Each row in my list consists of three fields that come from a database:  a 
> date, a title (both on the same line), and followed by a longer 
> description below that first line.  Knowing that the rendered HTML 
> contains leading table, tr and td tags, I've added my own tags right into 
> the <ItemTemplate>:
>
> <asp:DataList DataSourceID="..." >
> <ItemTemplate>
>        <div class="clsDate"><%# Eval("MYDATE") %></div></td>
>        <td><div class="clsTitle"><%# Eval( "MYTITLE") %></div></td>
>    </tr>
>    <tr>
>        <td colspan="2"><div class="clsDescription"><%# Eval( 
> "MYDESCRIPTION" ) %></div>
> </ItemTemplate>
> </asp:DataList>
>
> This lines up nicely:
>
> Date1    Title1
> Description1
>
> Date2    Title2
> Description2
>
> Date3    Title3
> Description3
>
> The rendered output is exactly what I want (and perfectly valid 
> HTML)...but I can't help but get the feeling that I'm "cheating" by 
> embedding my own partial tags--eg, my first <td> tag is a terminating 
> </td>, knowing that the framework will already have generated a leading 
> <td> by then, and I don't supply a terminating </td> either, knowing the 
> framework will generate the final </td> tag...
>
> As far as I understand them, the DetailsView and FormView controls offer 
> more layout flexibility, but are are intended for displaying a single 
> record at a time.
>
> Is my approach a common and acceptable ASP.NET 2.0 practice?  If it is, 
> then so be and I'm worrying about nothing because "it works" and the 
> rendered code is clean...but as much as possible, I'd like to do things 
> the way you're supposed to and not hack partial tags into .aspx files (not 
> to mention that it'll probably trip the WYSIWYG editor sooner or later)...
>
> I've seen more than a few references suggesting that the DataList has been 
> mostly replaced by the GridView, but as far as I can tell, this isn't 
> going to work in this case because I want the description to appear on its 
> own row after the date and title fields (whereas the GridView is strictly 
> line-oriented).
>
> Thoughts?
> 

> Try using <asp:Repeater /> instead. The problem with making assumptions 
> about the particular output of server controls is that the output could 
> potentially change in a future version, breaking your code. For example, 
> if Microsoft decided to use <ul /> to display menus instead of <table />. 
> Microsoft? Please? While it is unlikely that the DataGrid output will ever 
> change, I still think this applies as a bad practice.


This is *exactly* why I'm asking the question.  Using knowledge of what 
should be a black box to hack your way around always leads to problems in 
the long term.  Thanks for confirming this.


> Here is an example (not tested):
>
> <table>
>  <asp:Repeater ...>
>    <ItemTemplate>
>      <tr>
>        <td class="clsDate">
>          <%# Eval("MYDATE") %>
>        </td>
>        <td class="clsTitle">
>          <%# Eval("MYTITLE") %>
>        </td>
>      </tr>
>      <tr>
>        <td class="clsDescription" colspan="2">
>          <%# Eval("MYDESCRIPTION") %>
>        </td>
>      </tr>
>    </ItemTemplate>
>  </asp:Repeater>
> </table>
>
> This also allows you to assign classes at the <td /> level and avoid using 
> redundant <div /> containers.


Yeah, the only reason I was using divs was to add the ability to assign a 
class for custom formatting--obviously I couldn't assign one to the first 
<td> tag, since I'm not the one providing it.  As for the other cases 
(title, description), I only added the div (instead of using the enclosing 
td) for consistency.  That only increased my suspicion that I was going 
about it the wrong way.

<asp:Repeater> it is then--your example looks safe enough and very clean for 
my purposes.  I hadn't looked into it (yet) as most of the references I've 
been using are concentrating on the gridview (being new to 2.0).  I'm still 
at the stage where I'm discovering what's available and figuring out the 
best way to tackle common problems.