Section 19.5. Server Controls

19.5. Server Controls

Web Forms offer two types of Server Controls. The first is server -side HTML controls . These are HTML controls that you tag with the attribute runat =Server . Although these work, we won't spend time on them in this chapter.

Instead, we will focus on ASP.NET Server Controls ^[*] that Microsoft designed to augment and replace the standard HTML controls. Server Controls provide a more consistent object model and more consistently named attributes. For example, with traditional and server-side HTML controls, input is not handled consistently:

^[*] Some programmers also call these "ASP Controls" or "Web Controls."

 <input type="radio">     <input type="checkbox">     <input type="button">  <input type="text">   <textarea>  

Figure 19-7. Switching between design and source tabs after adding a radio group

Each input type behaves differently and takes different attributes, and text is handled with different types of controls depending on whether you want a single line or multi-line input. The Server Controls try to use attributes consistently. The Server Controls that correspond to the preceding HTML Server Controls are as follows :

 <asp:RadioButton>     <asp:CheckBox>     <asp:Button>  <asp:TextBox rows="1">   <asp:TextBox rows="5">  

When you use the Server Controls, ASP.NET translates them into ordinary HTML before sending the page back to the browser. What is seen on the browser is always industry-standard HTML and will run on virtually any browser by any manufacturer.