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There are numerous ways to make your Web Forms more interactive and user friendly through JavaScript. Peter's Interactive Pages provides your site the same techniques used by JavaScript experts just by setting properties on web controls.

Peter's Interactive Pages provides 10 controls and 3 technologies. They are:

• FieldStateController, MultiFieldStateController, FSCOnCommand, and MultiFSCOnCommand controls
• CalculationController control
• TextCounter control
• Context Menu control
• DropDownMenu control
• Interactive Hints
• Enhanced ToolTips
• Enhanced Button controls
• ChangeMonitor
• Direct Enter to a specific button

FieldStateController, MultiFieldStateController, FSCOnCommand, and MultiFSCOnCommand

The 4 FieldStateController controls monitor clicks and changes on a field and modifies other controls. It can modify almost any attribute of a field: visibility, enabled, style sheet class, value and more. For example, use it when you want a textbox to be disabled until the user marks a checkbox.

Use these controls to make your page interactive, much the way a Windows application changes as the user clicks and edits settings. You simply drop on the control, set some properties, and let DES generate the cross-browser compatible JavaScript.

CalculationController

The CalculationController lets you describe a calculation that uses the textboxes on the page. It can display the result of the calculation in a label or another textbox. Validators can validate the result of the calculation. For example, a RangeValidator can make sure the total of 3 textboxes is within 0 to 100.

TextCounter

The TextCounter control displays the number of characters or words within a textbox. It assists users when there are limits to the size of text they can enter. It compliments, but does not replace the TextLengthValidator/WordCountValidator, because it does not impose a limit. It merely communicates the count and if a limit is exceeded.

The user interface of the TextCounter can be like an interactive label control. It also can present itself in the Hint feature of DES TextBoxes.

Context Menu

The Context Menu control provides a client-side popup menu that looks like the browser’s right-click context menus. It is designed to show a list of commands and optionally their keystroke equivalents. When the mouse passes over a command, the row is highlighted, the way context menus do. When the mouse is clicked on a row, the popup closes and associated JavaScript code is executed. You supply the JavaScript code for each command.

DropDownMenu

The DropDownMenu control is a button with built-in ContextMenu, providing an easy way to launch a context menu at a specific location on the page.

Interactive Hints

The Interactive Hints feature shows a hint as the user moves into a field. Multiple fields can share a common spot on the page for a hint, saving valuable screen real estate. Hints can appear in the browser’s status bar too.

Validator error messages can merge into a hint so the user has the most pertinent information about the field.

If you have the Peter's TextBoxes module, this feature adds Hint properties to the TextBoxes and MultiSegmentDataEntry control, making setup very easy. You can add Hints to any other data entry control by calling a method in Page_Load.

Enhanced ToolTips

The browser provides the tooltip to describe almost any field as the mouse passes over it. That tooltip is very limited. For most browsers, it cannot be multiline. It has one style (yellow). It cannot support HTML.

Using the same PopupView feature found in DES’s Interactive Hints and the DES Validator’s PopupErrorFormatter, DES gives you a better tooltip. You control its appearance and supply it with HTML to convey the information better.

Enhanced Buttons

The three buttons in ASP.NET – Button, LinkButton, and ImageButton – have been subclassed in DES to extend them in many ways. While some of the features are built for the Peter's Professional Validation module, several are available to Interactive Pages users: Disable buttons on submit and Confirmation Message.

ChangeMonitor

The ChangeMonitor watches for edits in the form and changes the appearance of buttons and other fields upon the first detected edit.

The classic case is to have a disabled OK button that gets enabled as you start typing. Another case is to show a message like “This form has changed” in a label. Both of these cases are handled.

Direct Enter key to click Button

Direct the Enter and other keys to click a specific button. Enhances DES’s TextBoxes with the EnterSubmitsControlID property. It is available for other data entry controls through the NativeControlExtender control.

If you are purchasing modules, the Peter's Professional Validation module is recommended but not required. The underlying evaluation rules from each validator, called Conditions, are used by the FieldStateController and CalculationController (to build IF statements). You can still create your own Conditions, much like creating a CustomValidator, if you don't get Peter's Professional Validation. However, it is a lot easier having the over 30 Conditions already in DES.