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I'm a complete novice to ASP.NET and have two questions - the first is
conceptual and the other is technical.

Conceptual:
I envisage having a web site that has a search facility displayed in the top
corner of every page. Seems sensible to me to have this as a control? So,
no matter what is displayed in the main body of the page, a user can choose
to search the site for, say, a product. What I would expect is that this
control would search the database and return either a single product or a
whole bunch of similar products based on the search criteria. I presume
that I would have two further controls - one to display a single product in
full detail and another to display a set of similar products in "minimal"
detail. The search control would then use the correct control in the main
body of the page. Does this sound sensible, or is this a poor design
(thinking also in terms of scalability). If poor, what would be a better
concept?

Technically:
Based on the above concept, I have one control [search] "activating" another
specific control [single product display] when it could have "activated"
other controls, e.g. the [multiple products display]. I've no idea yet how
to get this to work and any advice on how to get up to speed on this ultra
quickly would be of great help to me.

Many thanks in advance

Griff

> I'm a complete novice to ASP.NET and have two questions - the first is
> conceptual and the other is technical.
>
> Conceptual:
> I envisage having a web site that has a search facility displayed in the
top
> corner of every page. Seems sensible to me to have this as a control?

Good idea...

>So,
> no matter what is displayed in the main body of the page, a user can
choose
> to search the site for, say, a product. What I would expect is that this
> control would search the database and return either a single product or a
> whole bunch of similar products based on the search criteria. I presume
> that I would have two further controls - one to display a single product
in
> full detail and another to display a set of similar products in "minimal"
> detail.

Been there done that, good idea...

> The search control would then use the correct control in the main
> body of the page. Does this sound sensible, or is this a poor design
> (thinking also in terms of scalability). If poor, what would be a better
> concept?
>

I did a web site that used one page and a whole bunch of user controls that
were displayed in the middle, depending on what the user was doing. Worked
fine.

www.focusnorthamptonshire.co.uk ... i think

> Technically:
> Based on the above concept, I have one control [search] "activating"
another
> specific control [single product display] when it could have "activated"
> other controls, e.g. the [multiple products display]. I've no idea yet
how
> to get this to work and any advice on how to get up to speed on this ultra
> quickly would be of great help to me.

User controls can talk to each other via public properties, or perhaps more
easily by setting Session variables.


Remember, if theres a choice, C# is a better language than VB.

I meant http://www.focusnorthamptonshire.org.uk/ ...

And of course ...


http://www.just-av.co.uk/

> > The search control would then use the correct control in the main
> > body of the page. Does this sound sensible, or is this a poor design
> > (thinking also in terms of scalability). If poor, what would be a
better
> > concept?
>
> I did a web site that used one page and a whole bunch of user controls
that
> were displayed in the middle, depending on what the user was doing.
Worked
> fine.

Josh - how does one control in ASP.NET interact with another?

> Remember, if theres a choice, C# is a better language than VB.
Subjectively or objectively? If I'm familiar with VB6, VB.NET surely would
be the better option for me?

> Josh - how does one control in ASP.NET interact with another?

Session variables or public varaiables on the usercontrols or public
variables on the page that all of thge conrols can access.

>
> > Remember, if theres a choice, C# is a better language than VB.
> Subjectively or objectively? If I'm familiar with VB6, VB.NET surely
would
> be the better option for me?

My software house has been through this question. Result : The change to
..Net is so drastic and the changes to VB so wide, that changing the actual
language to C# is no harder to get a grip on.

Programmers here, "feel" more professional using C# than VB.