Introduction to Server Controls

Every server control has a tag with the runat="server" attribute and is converted to a client specific XHTML.ASP.NET server controls are object and have their own properties method and event handlers. The most useful inherited properties are:

• Controls: gives a collection with all child controls for a specified server control
• EnableViewState: boolean to decide whether the controls has to track his current state or not
• ID: id of the server control,maybe the most important property
• Visible: boolean to decide if the controls will be rendered

The most useful inherited methods are:

• DataBind(): binds the controls with a certain data source (e.g resultset of an sql query)
• FindControl(): searches a child control with the given name(string)
• HasControls(): boolean that define if this server control owns child controls