Hi Todd,

Sounds like what Rob is suggesting is his survey feature could potentially be used as a way to create custom forms.

I think the core of what you've hit on is that we lost a little something in the transition from Classic ASP which is an interpreted scripting language to .NET which is a strongly typed compiled language. The scripting model has an advantage in that a designer can learn just enough and be able to develop forms. To me the designer is kind of being a junior programmer in this task and the barrier has gotten a little higher in .NET. I think in this case the designer is going to have to learn some new tricks. Its further complicated/made difficult by the fact that mojoPortal uses the pre-compiled code behind model of the ASP.NET Web Application where all the server side code is precompiled into the bin folders as dlls. There is another model with the ASP.NET Web Site Project which does allow deployment of source code which is then compiled as needed autmatically. This model is perhaps a little more conducive to a designer/junior developer being able to edit files right on the server without having to compile.

I have some ideas about trying to bridge this and make it possible to add pages with mojoportal that contain raw source code but I need to experiment with it to see if it works. I'll try to do that soon and report back.

The other thing you've hit upon is that only 1 form can be on a page in ASP.NET. This is not a mojoPortal specific limitation this is limitation of ASP.NET that not everyone thinks was a great design choice on the part of MS but is nevertheless the way it is, some call it a feature, others deride it as a design flaw.

So I think there are several possible strategies to adapt the workflow.

1. If we implement some kind of form wizard type feature in mojoPortal a la Rob's Survey feature

2. The untried idea (that I will try soon and report back on) that would at least make it easier to deploy pages with code written by the designer. Even if this works its going to take the designer learning some C#

Best Regards,

Joe

The concept I was thinking of turned out to work. Basically the idea is to create an aspx page with inline code instead of codebehind and then make it inherit from mojoBasePage. This technique wwould allow your designer to write the form handling code right in the page albeit in C# not VBScript as in Classic ASP.

mojoPortal uses the Web Application project type which uses code behind files that are ultimately pre-compiled into mojoPortal.Web.dll in the bin folder. If you try to add a WebForm to the project in VS it will automatically stub out the code behind files. However if you create an aspx page that uses inline code instead of code behind using a text editor you can drop this file into your web folder and you can still edit it in VS, just don't add the file to the project. By default files that are not in the project are not shown in Solution Explorer but if you click the web project name in Solution Explorer then mouse over the icons at the top of Solution Explorer you will see one for "Show All Files". Click that and it will now show all files including those not in the project, they will be kind of whited out but you can see them and double click to open.

I will paste into this post below a skeleton hello world example that inherits from mojoBasePage and thus makes the page fit in visually. Handling the form post is really just code in the button click event. Using this model your designer can tiptoe into this and learn just enough C# to do what is needed. Not sure if this will come out right when I paste the code in here but we'll see.

<%@ Page Language="C#"
ClassName="ExampleInlineCodePage"
Inherits="mojoPortal.Web.mojoBasePage"
MasterPageFile="~/App_MasterPages/layout.Master" %>

<%@ Import Namespace="mojoPortal.Business" %>
<%@ Import Namespace="mojoPortal.Business.WebHelpers" %>
<%@ Import Namespace="mojoPortal.Web.Framework" %>
<%@ Import Namespace="mojoPortal.Web.Controls" %>
<%@ Import Namespace="mojoPortal.Web.Editor" %>
<%@ Import Namespace="mojoPortal.Net" %>

<script runat="server">

protected override void OnPreInit(EventArgs e)
{
this.allowSkinOverride = true;
base.OnPreInit(e);
}

protected override void OnInit(EventArgs e)
{
base.OnInit(e);
this.SuppressPageMenu();
}

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
TextBox1.Text = "Click the button";

}

protected void Button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
TextBox1.Text = "Hello Web";
}

</script>

<asp:Content ContentPlaceHolderID="leftContent" ID="MPLeftPane" runat="server" />
<asp:Content ContentPlaceHolderID="mainContent" ID="MPContent" runat="server">
Your custom form goes here.
<asp:TextBox ID="TextBox1" runat="server"></asp:TextBox>
<asp:Button ID="Button1" runat="server" OnClick="Button1_Click" Text="Button" /></div>

</asp:Content>
<asp:Content ContentPlaceHolderID="rightContent" ID="MPRightPane" runat="server" />
<asp:Content ContentPlaceHolderID="pageEditContent" ID="MPPageEdit" runat="server" />

Hope it helps,

Joe

ps I will also be creating a Codesmith template so pages like this can be easily stubbed out with Codesmith.