Comments on: Extending PageData with some cool Html Helpers

By: Johan Kronberg

Johan Kronberg — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 12:38:25 +0000

Might come in handy when creating a HTML mail or something like that. Otherwise I don’t see the point. Always a bad idea to put markup in code behind IMHO.

By: Html Helper methods vs Server controls | Frederik Vig - ASP.NET developer

Html Helper methods vs Server controls | Frederik Vig - ASP.NET developer — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 18:24:37 +0000

[...] received some very good comments on my post Extending PageData with some cool Html Helpers. Which made me want to explain my [...]

By: Steve

Steve — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 11:44:46 +0000

Good, then we agree

“Not write a C# class that hides all Html that’s being rendered in an adavanced, not for everyone, CreateDefaultControls method.”
– or in an extension method like Frederik is doing here

/Steve

By: Peter Sunna

Peter Sunna — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 10:37:31 +0000

Sorry steve, I misread your comment about control adapters. You are of course right, they become useless with this approach. Control adapters are good for changing the output of existing web controls, which you indeed can’t if you don’t use web controls… Lots of nice improvements to EPiServer have been done in this way.

However, I never use control adapters on my own code due to the simple fact that I try to make sure that I can control all Html that is rendered from the “markup”. Or, put in another way, I prefer having the Html in user controls instead of web controls. I think the problem that control adapters are trying to solve is a problem that shouldn’t exist (in a perfect developer world). The solution should be to provide another user control or something similar. Not write a C# class that hides all Html that’s being rendered in an adavanced, not for everyone, CreateDefaultControls method.

By: Steve

Steve — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 08:35:22 +0000

Peter – much cleaner? You’ve kidding, right?

Control adapters are there to save your hiney after the fact (and they are advanced, not for everyone). They give you a way to fix things in existing controls. I’ve used them as work arounds for tricky bugs or design shortcomings in EPiServer for an example. Hard coding your html from your C# code makes that impossible.

Btw. this post is not about control adapters, my comment was that this code makes control adapters useless.

By: Peter Sunna

Peter Sunna — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 08:09:26 +0000

Personally I think control adapters are a bit too complex and I think this approach is much cleaner. Only working with web controls is nice in theory but the code usually ends up being harder to read and understand when trying to do things that’s not out of the box (to speak sales language…)

So, don’t let steve stop you!

By: Jonas Persson

Jonas Persson — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 06:57:27 +0000

Interesting post!

By: Tom Stenius

Tom Stenius — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 02:54:43 +0000

I somewhat agree with Steve, though I find myself doing these kind of things every once and a while, to have them in the extension project will be great help for those occasions.

//Tom

By: Frederik Vig

Frederik Vig — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 23:03:09 +0000

Totally agree on the naming convention. Renamed it HtmlLink, which makes much more sense .

By: Steve

Steve — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 22:46:06 +0000

Interesting post!

For MVC, I absolutely see the point of these Html Helpers, as they are quite important to actually render stuff consistently. For web forms, I’m not sure. One of the key architectural features of web forms is separation of markup and logic, hence server controls.

What about control adapters with this approach? They won’t be invoked for your code. We all create html markup directly from code now and then, and I always feel a little naughty when I do – as I shouldn’t really be doing it.

I love extensions, but I think I’ll find a seat on the fence for this one.

Btw. I’d try to group all methods of this kind together with a naming scheme, like HtmlLink, HtmlImage etc. (if you decide to create more that is.

/Steve