Beginning ASP.NET 3.5: In C# and VB

14.2. Handling Events

Most chapters so far have covered how the ASP.NET controls trigger events. You learned how to handle these events with event handler code that you typically add to the page's Code Behind file. For example, you wrote code to handle a Button control's Click event. Additionally, in the previous chapter, you learned how to react to various events — such as Inserting and Inserted — that happen just prior to and after an insert operation in the database. However, most controls expose a lot more events, enabling you to hook into the life cycle of your page and controls at different stages.

A solid understanding of the various events that fire during a control's life cycle and the order in which they fire is important knowledge for an ASP.NET developer. Being able to hook into the control's life cycle, tweaking parts of the output as you go enables you to create flexible, dynamic web pages that do exactly what you want.

To gain an understanding of the various events and the order in which they fire, the next section explains the basic steps in the ASP.NET control pipeline. You won't see every event that is fired in the process, but instead you see the ones you are most likely to use. Later sections then show you how to make use of these events to change the behavior of your web pages.

14.2.1. The ASP.NET Page and Controls Life Cycles Revisited

In Chapter 6 you learned about the different stages in a page's life. You learned about different events like PreInit, Load, ...