Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2010 Unleashed

User Controls

If you still can’t find the perfect control, Visual Studio provides you with the framework to create your own controls. You can take the simple approach and define a user control. A user control works a lot like a web page. You can use the designer to lay it out. It also has a code-behind and the same event model as a web page. You can create a user control and then drop it on pages across your site.

Creating a User Control

You add a user control to your project from the Add New Items dialog box. You select the template, Web User Control (refer to Figure 17.20). User controls have the extension .ascx. You define the look of your control like you would a web page. You can use the designer to drag other form elements to the page ...