asp.net: Handling form data in Visual Studio 2010

Question

Climbing the learning curve for creating asp.net webform pages with Visual Studio 2010 (VB).

I had written a fairly complicated .aspx page with form controls, including textboxes and buttons, etc. I never thought to place the form controls inside a <form> block. Instead, all the controls include the "runat" directive; for example, <asp:textbox id="txtUserName" runat="server"> etc. In the codebehind I access the data with strUserName = txtUserName.text. This seems to work just fine.

Now, though, I received some form pages from our contracted "professional" web developer wherein the form code is all enclosed in a <form runat="server">block, and none of the controls include the runat directive. Accessing the data from these controls is a little different: It uses the <input type="text name="txtUserName" id="txtUserName" /> method, and accessing the data in the codebehind is strUserName = Request.Form("txtUserName").ToString.

My method seems to work fine, but I am wondering if there is a difference in behavior or reliability between my method and his. Even though my way works, am I doing it wrong?

Mine is based on online research I have done to learn this stuff, and I don't remember seeing anything that looked like his. However, just today I see places that are saying that on .aspx pages, form controls MUST be enclosed in a <form> block (i.e., this page at w3schools.com).

Can anyone clarify this for me?

Thanks for your help!

Answer 1

You're not doing it incorrectly (you're using my preferred approach) but your inputs should still be in an enclosing Form tag.

He's using HtmlControls (System.Web.UI.HtmlControls namespace) and you're using web controls (System.Web.UI.WebControls.) Your controls provide better functionality on the server (viewstate and accessing via server code) and his approach is lighter weight.