Tutorial: Straight way to Create ASP.NET user controls library

My post-build tool transforming any Web Application into a library containing .ascx controls.

Preamble

I feel necessity to compile my ASP.NET user controls into a library. It is good for modularity and reusing. However, there is no official way to do it. We can create custom controls library only.

Note:- The difference between custom controls and user controls. Custom control is ordinary .NET class inherited from System.Web.WebControls.WebControl. It overrides method RenderContents and renders itself with output.Write(...).

User control consists of *.ascx file, codebehind * .vb file and *.designer.cs file. It allows to simple write HTML code and uses all benefits of code behind model. ASP.NET compiles it at runtime.

I researched many articles offering several workarounds like:-

* Copy wry DLLs (Asp_web_[control name].ascx.73dba69a.dll, etc ) + controls’ source into target project.

* Use wry IIS configuration to substitute foreign virtual directory.

* Create single DLL with ILMerge and use wry control names like mycontrols_goodcontrol_ascx. 

All these ways have seriously weakness. I have several requirements for straight way:

* Preserve designers, code generators, etc working within the library project

* It should be easy to use controls of the library in any other web application

* It should be easy to use controls of the library in other such libraries

* It should be easy to reuse controls of the library within itself

* It should be possible to reference the library as project

* It should be possible to reference the library as DLL

* The library should consist of one file.

* It should be possible to create new library in 30 seconds

* The solution should work for .NET v2.0, v3.0, v3.5

| Read More..

Courtesy: Codeproject.com