Sharepoint 2010: Web Control vs Custom Controls

Problem

· We need to have an easy way to edit different text into the web site, for example some text into the header and footer. This problem appeared while working in a SharePoint 2010 project, as we wouldn’t use a webpart.

Solution

We designed two different solutions:

· In the first solution, we created a User web Control (.ascx) that has two parameters and retrieves both values from ShareProperty.

· For the second solution, we created a Custom Control inheriting the standard WebControl HyperLink. This solution has one parameter and retrieves the value from ShareProperty.

Using User web Control		Using Custom Control inheritance HyperLink
This solution uses a .ascx and both variables (text and url) to retrieve information dynamically. We created a user web control called HyperLink.		The problem with this solution is we need to add some configuration into the web.config and the text is not dynamic.
		We need to add the flowing line into the web.config <system.web> <pages> <controls> <add tagPrefix="Controls" namespace="WebApplication1" assembly="WebApplication1" /> </controls> </pages> </system.web>
Add the following register into the page <%@ Register TagPrefix="Controls" TagName="HyperLink" src="~/_controltemplates/ Branding/HyperLink.ascx" %>		Add the following register into the page <%@ Register tagPrefix="Controls" namespace="WebApplication1" %>
To use the web control you need to add the following sentence: <Controls:HyperLink Id="CanvasCampaign" KeyText="CanvasCampaignText" KeyUrl="CanvasCampaignUrl" runat="server"/>		To use the custom control you need to add the following sentence: <Controls:HyerLinkControl id="a1" runat="server" NavigateUrl=" CanvasCampaignUrl "> Link to read more about Canvas campaign </Controls:HyerLinkControl>
This code is added to the code behind: using System; using System.Collections; using System.Web.UI; using System.Web.UI.WebControls; using System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts; using Microsoft.SharePoint; using Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities; using System.ComponentModel; namespace Branding { public partial class HyperLink : UserControl { protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { string valueUrl = string.Empty; string valueText = string.Empty; Hashtable props = SPContext.Current.Web.Site.RootWeb.AllProperties; if (props.ContainsKey(KeyText)) { valueText = props[KeyText].ToString(); } if (props.ContainsKey(KeyUrl)) { valueUrl = props[KeyUrl].ToString(); } HyperLink1.Text = valueText; HyperLink1.NavigateUrl = valueUrl; } private string keyText=string.Empty; [PersistenceMode(PersistenceMode.InnerProperty), DesignerSerializationVisibility(DesignerSerializationVisibility.Content)] public string KeyText { get { return keyText; } set { keyText = value; } } private string keyUrl = string.Empty; [PersistenceMode(PersistenceMode.InnerProperty), DesignerSerializationVisibility(DesignerSerializationVisibility.Content)] public string KeyUrl { get { return keyUrl; } set { keyUrl = value; } } } }		This code is added to the code behind: using System; using System.Collections; using System.ComponentModel; using System.Web; using System.Web.UI; using System.Web.UI.WebControls; using Microsoft.SharePoint; using Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities; namespace Branding { [DefaultProperty("Text")] [ToolboxData("<{0}:HyerLinkControl runat=server></{0}:HyerLinkControl>")] public class HyerLinkControl : System.Web.UI.WebControls.HyperLink { protected override void AddAttributesToRender(System.Web.UI.HtmlTextWriter writer) { string valueUrl = string.Empty; string valueText = string.Empty; Hashtable props = SPContext.Current.Web.Site.RootWeb.AllProperties; if (props.ContainsKey(this.NavigateUrl)) { valueUrl = props[this.NavigateUrl].ToString(); } this.NavigateUrl = valueUrl; base.AddAttributesToRender(writer); } } }
This code is added to the .aspx
Open Sharepoint Designer Click on “Site Options” and add two new key-value pair. CanvasCampaignText = Link to read more about Canvas campaign CanvasCampaignUrl = http://www....		Open Sharepoint Designer Click on “Site Options” and add new key-value pair. CanvasCampaignUrl = http://www....
Refresh page, and in both solutions we have the same result: