Custom Controls are controls that extend a Standard Control to implement specific requirements or to take advantage of technologies such as AJAX.

Custom Controls are used for substituting Standard Controls on the generated form when the User Interface requirements demand an interface that cannot be satisfied by the standard controls. Using the CTC Configurator, Standard Controls can be substituted with Custom Control. See the CTC ASP.NET WebForms Configurator documentation for further details.

Included with the CTC ASP.NET WebForms Generator are a number of Custom Controls. These can be used out of the box or changed to suit local requirements.

Included in the list of custom controls below are a number of controls from the Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit. The ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit is a free download and contains more than 40 additional AJAX controls that work on top of the core ASP.NET AJAX release. Six controls from the toolkit that are particularly suitable for extending controls on EAE and AB Suite forms to enhance the user experience have been included as custom controls. Other AJAX controls can be included on request. For more information on the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit see http://www.asp.net/ajax/ajaxcontroltoolkit/. For information on downloading and installing the toolkit, see the CTC ASP.NET WebForms Generator ReadMe document.

The following lists the Custom Controls that are delivered as part of the CTC Silverlight Client Generator:

Custom Control

Description

CalendarExtender-AJAX This extends the standard TextBox control where date input is required. It provides client-side date-picking functionality with customizable date format suitable for EAE and AB Suite and UI in a popup control. The user can interact with the calendar by clicking on a day to set the date, or the “Today” link to set the current date. Actions are provided that allow the user to easily jump to past or future dates within the calendar control. For further details see the AJAX Calendar Extender. This requires the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit.

ComponentArt-WebChartControl This extends the standard ListBox control. This provides an example of utilizing a Third Party control from ComponentArt for displaying dynamic list data from EAE and AB Suite as a Chart. This requires the ComponentArt.Charting.WebChart.dll from Component Art. For further details on how to use the WebChart control from Component Art see: www.componentart.com/charting/.

DataListControl This extends the standard ListBox control. It takes advantage of the ASP.NET DataList control which provides capabilities for styling individual items in the list. It is especially useful for single column lists.

DataListControl-AJAX This extends the standard ListBox control. This is the same as the DataListControl but with added AJAX UI functionality that provides immediate feedback to the user when selecting an item in the list. This requires ASP.NET AJAX.

DatePicker This extends the standard TextBox control where date input is required. This is based on the ASP.NET server-side Calendar control and provides a customizable popup calendar control for easy date selection in date formats suitable for EAE and AB Suite.

DatePicker-AJAX This extends the standard TextBox control where date input is required. This is the same as the DatePicker but with added AJAX UI functionality that provides immediate feedback to the user when selecting a date in the popup calendar control. This requires ASP.NET AJAX.

FilteredTextBoxExtender-AJAX This extends the standard TextBox control. FilteredTextBox prevents users from entering invalid characters into a TextBox. For further details see the AJAX FilteredTextBox Extender. This requires the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit.

GridViewControl This extends the standard ListBox control. It takes advantage of the ASP.NET GridView control which provides capabilities for styling individual items in the list including column headers. It is particularly useful for multi column lists.

GridViewControl-AJAX This extends the standard ListBox control. This is the same as the GridViewControl but with added AJAX UI functionality that provides immediate feedback to the user when selecting an item in the list. This requires ASP.NET AJAX.

MaskedEditExtender-AJAX This extends the standard TextBox control. MaskedEdit is an extender that attaches to a TextBox control to restrict the kind of text users can enter. MaskedEdit applies a customizable “mask” that permits only certain types of characters/text to be entered. The supported data formats are; Number, Date, Time and DateTime. For further details see the AJAX MaskedEdit Extender. This requires the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit.

NumericUpDownExtender-AJAX This extends the standard TextBox control. NumericUpDown adds “up” and “down” buttons to a TextBox control that increment and decrement the value in the text box. The increment and decrement can be simple +1/-1 arithmetic or they can cycle through a provided list of values. For further details see the AJAX NumericUpDown Extender. This requires the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit.

SliderExtender-AJAX This extends the standard TextBox control. The Slider extender changes a TextBox control to a graphical slider that allows the user to choose a numeric value from a finite range. The Slider’s orientation can be horizontal or vertical and it can act as a “discrete” slider, allowing only a specific number of values within its range. For further details see the AJAX Slider Extender. This requires the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit.

TextBoxWatermarkExtender-AJAX This extends the standard TextBox control. TextBoxWatermark provides “watermark” behaviour to a TextBox control. When a “watermarked” TextBox is empty, it displays a message to the user with a custom CSS style. Once the user has typed some text into the TextBox, the watermark disappears. This can be used to provide information to the user about the TextBox. For further details see the AJAX TextBoxWatermark Extender. This requires the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit.