Repeater Control in ASP.Net: Part 2

Introduction

In Part 1 article of this series, we have discussed how to Display Data with Repeater Control but now in this part we will discuss how to use Templates with Repeater Control.

Templates with Repeater Control

As we know Repeater control supports five different types of templates mostly:

ItemTemplate: Formats each item from the data source.
AlternatingItemTemplate: Formats every other item from the data source.
SeparatorTemplate: Formats between each item from the data source.
HeaderTemplate: Formats before all items from the data source.
FooterTemplate: Formats after all items from the data source.

The order in which we declare the templates in the Repeater control does not matter. We can use the AlternatingItemTemplate to display alternating rows with a different background color. Here is the example given below.

<%@ Page Language="VB" %>

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

</script>

<asp:Repeater
id="rptBooks"
DataSourceID="SqlDataSource1"
Runat="server">
<HeaderTemplate>
<table class="books">
<tr class="heading">
<th>Book Number</th>
<th>Book Name</th>
<th>Author Name</th>
<th>Price</th>
</tr>
</HeaderTemplate>
<ItemTemplate>
<tr>
<td><%# Eval("ID")%></td>
<td><%#Eval("TITLE") %></td>
<td><%#Eval("AUTHOR") %></td>
<td><%#Eval("PRICE") %></td>
</tr>
</ItemTemplate>
<AlternatingItemTemplate>
<tr class="alternating">
<td><%# Eval("ID")%></td>
<td><%# Eval("TITLE")%></td>
<td><%# Eval("AUTHOR")%></td>
<td><%#Eval("PRICE") %></td>
</tr>
</AlternatingItemTemplate>
<FooterTemplate>
</table>
</FooterTemplate>
</asp:Repeater>

<asp:SqlDataSource ID="SqlDataSource1" runat="server"
ConnectionString="<%$ ConnectionStrings:DatabaseConnectionString1 %>"
ProviderName="<%$ ConnectionStrings:DatabaseConnectionString1.ProviderName %>"
SelectCommand="SELECT [ID], [TITLE], [AUTHOR], [PRICE] FROM [BOOK_LIST]">
</asp:SqlDataSource>

</div>
</form>
</body>
</html>

Repeater control in above example renders an HTML table in which every other row appears with a gray background color. Notice that this Repeater control uses four out of five of the templates supported by the Repeater: the ItemTemplate, AlternatingItemTemplate, HeaderTemplate, and FooterTemplate. The AlternatingItemTemplate contains almost exactly the same content as the ItemTemplate. The only difference is that the <tr> tag includes a class attribute that changes its background color. The SeparatorTemplate is used to add content between each data item from the data source. For example, the page given below uses a SeparatorItemTemplate to create a tab strip with the Repeater control.

<%@ Page Language="VB" %>

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

</script>

<asp:Repeater
id="rptBookCategories"
DataSourceID="SqlDataSource1"
Runat="server">
<ItemTemplate>
<asp:HyperLink
id="lnkMenu"
Text='<%#Eval("NAME")%>'
NavigateUrl='<%#Eval("CATEGORYID","Default.aspx?id={0}")%>'
Runat="server" />
</ItemTemplate>
<SeparatorTemplate>
|
</SeparatorTemplate>
</asp:Repeater>

<asp:Repeater
id="rptBooks"
DataSourceID="SqlDataSource2"
Runat="server">
<HeaderTemplate>
<ul>
</HeaderTemplate>
<ItemTemplate>
<li><%#Eval("NAME")%></li>
</ItemTemplate>
<FooterTemplate>
</ul>
</FooterTemplate>
</asp:Repeater>

<br />
<asp:SqlDataSource ID="SqlDataSource1" runat="server"
ConnectionString="<%$ ConnectionStrings:DatabaseConnectionString1 %>"
ProviderName="<%$ ConnectionStrings:DatabaseConnectionString1.ProviderName %>"
SelectCommand="SELECT [CATEGORYID], [NAME] FROM [CATEGORIES]">
</asp:SqlDataSource>
<br />
<asp:SqlDataSource ID="SqlDataSource2" runat="server"
ConnectionString="<%$ ConnectionStrings:DatabaseConnectionString1 %>"
ProviderName="<%$ ConnectionStrings:DatabaseConnectionString1.ProviderName %>"
SelectCommand="SELECT [ID], [NAME], [AUTHOR] FROM [BOOKS] WHERE ID=@ID">
<SelectParameters>
<asp:QueryStringParameter
Name="ID"
QueryStringField="ID" />
</SelectParameters>
</asp:SqlDataSource>

</div>
</form>
</body>
</html>

Note: Continue in next part.

HAVE A GREAT CODING!