Applied ASP.NET 4 in Context

Creating Data-Bound Templates

Before we look at the rich data controls in the next chapter, it is worth examining some of the underlying mechanisms that these controls employ—in particular, the way that the control templates work. These templates follow the same approach as the ones described in Chapter 16, but they are known as data-bound templates, because they include values from the data you introduce to your project.

Getting a handle on the different types of templates makes understanding the rich data controls easier. Along the way, you'll see two of the simpler rich data controls and use them to create templates that render HTML containing data values.

To get started, you need to create a data source. Create a new project using the Visual ...