How to set focus to a web control in ASP.NET
- by Dan7el
Question: What is the best way to set focus to a web control in ASP .NET.
I can do it, but it's ugly. I have a web control wrapped in a web control hosted on a web page. So, if you do a view | source on the page the id is something like WrapperControl_Control_TextBox.
I've tried the "tried and true" Javascript methods of grabbing the element and setting it's focus: document.getElementByID( "WrapperControl_Control_TextBox" ).focus(); and it didn't work. I'm not sure why.
I know I could possibly do:
document.getElementById( "<%= TextBox.ClientID %" ).focus(); too, I think. This won't work because of another totally separate error based on the fact you can't dynamically add controls to a header if there is a "<% %" in the page. GAH.
In the "bottom-most" control, I've tried setting the focus (TextBox.Focus() in Page_Load) and that doesn't work either.
Anyway, the way that works is by simply taking the ControlsCollection of the Page, grabbing the control I need from that, getting it's collection, grabbing the next lower control and so forth.
I only have to do this seven times. So I have eight foreach loops.
Basically, my code is like this:
///////////////////////////////
// On the page
///////////////////////////////
ControlCollection controls = Controls;
foreach( Control control in controls)
{
if ( string.Equals( control.ID, "FormID", StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnore ) )
{
ControlCollection nextControls = control.Controls;
foreach( Control nextControl in nextControls )
{
if ( string.Equals( nextControl.ID, "DivICareAboutInTheForm", StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnor ) )
{
ControlCollection nextNextControls = nextControl.Controls;
//:
//:
//Yes, it's that bad and so forth.
//:
//:
}
}
}
}
