Overview

The ASP.NET wrapper's capabilities open a new way for a Visual WebGui programmer to develop richer and even more customizable applications then before. The wrapper allows you to use third party ASP.Net components or your own ASP.Net components in Visual WebGui as fully integrated controls just like the Visual WebGui out of the box controls.

In our demo we will wrap Dundas charts and use them in a Visual WebGui application.

Let's Start

First let's create a new Visual WebGui application:

Right click the solution and click Enable Visual WebGui:

Add the necessary reference to Dundas assembles:

Right click the project and click "Add ASP.NET Wrapper" control:

From the ASP.NET wrapper wizard select the Dundas Chart control and give it a name "DundasChart":

After clicking the OK button you will get a new wrapper class generated:

Because Dundas chart control renders images it needs a fixed size to rely on, otherwise you will get an error indicating that Dundas chart control does not support non pixel dimensions. To force the wrapper to pass absolute dimensions you need to override the IsFixedSize property in the DundasChart.cs fileas following:

The current wrapper generator does not work out ambiguous properties well and that still is left to be hand fixed, until the next version release.

After you compile the project you will get a list of warnings regarding ambiguous properties. Fix those warnings by changing the names of the properties / methods or simply mark out the conflicting code:

After you compile the project and you open the Form1.cs designer, you will get the new wrapper in the toolbox, like this:

Now you can drag the new wrapper control to the form which will put in a place holder like this:

The new wrapper allows you to initialize the control by using a reference to an ASCX file. Add a new WebUserControl1.ascx to the project

And in that ASCX you can add the control code and set his initialization.

In this demo we will paste in the current code which will initialize the Dundas chart so we will be able to just insert data from code (This code is taken from a Dundas sample)

To use an external file insert a path to your code (ASCX file) in the ControlCode property using the following format:  [Assembly Resource Name]

Now we can add a Visual WebGui button to the form and attach its click event to the following code (This code is taken from a Dundas sample)

Open your web.config and add to it the Dundas http handler as following:

Set Form1 to be the startup form using the right click as following:

Run the application and you will get the following screen:

After you click the button our code will refresh the chart and display the following view:

Summary

As you can see it is very simple to create a wrapper using the new ASP.NET wrapper feature. This is the first version (6.2.1) of Visual WebGui which has this capability and we intend to simplify the procedure even more.

For more information http://www.visualwebgui.com/

About Eyal Albert

Sorry, no bio is available This author has published 6 articles on DotNetSlackers. View other articles or the complete profile here.

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Discussion

Subject	Author	Date
problem when add controls like 'Button' in Form	Ahmed Metwally	2/28/2009 5:15 AM
I start to try Visual WebGui professional studio (build 6.3.1) trial version. I install it and create new project in Visual Studio 2008 Team system. Now I need to apply this action "Enable Visual WebGui" I cant find this option in menu when I right click the project name! However, I ignore this action and start to put controls in form, When I do that the huge message appear, this message told me that "Field to create component... and "System.NullReferenceException" and more. I reinstall WebGui and the problem still exist. I just need to know where is the problem exactly ? Live free Or die hard. Reply | Permanent link
RE: problem when add controls like 'Button' in Form	Ahmed Metwally	2/28/2009 5:23 AM
I'm sorry i make a mistake in this clause "Field to create component" it's "Failed" not "Field" you know lot work in database is dangerous :) Live free Or die hard. Reply | Permanent link
Hi Ahmed.	Eyal Albert	3/1/2009 3:36 AM
First thing is thanks for trying our product. You are right to igoner the "Enable Visual WebGui" this is no longer needed i will update the article. About the problem i will need more info. you can go to our website and open a post in our form  http://www.visualwebgui.com/ or send me an email Eyal.albert  (AT) Gizmox.com Thanks Reply | Permanent link

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