Is it possible to force a WebControl to render as a <div> instead of a <span>?

Question

How can I force the WebControl to render as a <div>? Currently, it renders as a <span> and our UI guy prefers it be a <div>. To accommodate him, I'd like to see if this is possible and if so, how it's possible.

Answer 1

Yes, it is definitely possible. Asp.net gives you full control over the output rendered.

Take a look at Control Adapters

The asp.net team has released many adapters for CSS friendly rendering for controls like Menu, TreeView, and FormView. Take a look at CSS friend control adapters

You can always build your own to customize the rendering as needed by your UI guy.

Answer 2

You can override the RenderBeginTag method of WebControl:

public override void RenderBeginTag(HtmlTextWriter writer)
{
    writer.RenderBeginTag("div");
}

There's also a RenderEndTag that you can override, which might not be necessary in this case:

public override void RenderEndTag(HtmlTextWriter writer)
{
    writer.RenderBeginTag();
}

Answer 3

Probably better to override TagKey like so:

protected override HtmlTextWriterTag TagKey => HtmlTextWriterTag.Div;

Then any attributes the WebControl would render continue to be placed on opening tag.