Master/Detail help needed for ASP.NET newbie. (screenshot too).

I'm just beinning basic data driven ASP.NET webforms design. I have the first part of a form working, but I don't know what to do next.

Please see this screenshot of what I have created so far: http://www.twitpic.com/2gnmr

I need help knowing what kind of HTML element to use in the master list, and what event/trigger on that element to use to fire off the "get child records for this selected item" sequence?

Also, is a ListView even the correct way to present the master list? At this time, I'm not trying to provide any editing features; I'll get to that later, I guess.

Should I use some other ASP.NET data control rather than hand-coding a listview like I am doing?

I don't want to see an actual "Select" link item beside each Customer Name (that looks goofy). I want the Customer Name to be the link to click on.

So, you can see in my code below that I have a ListView to present a list of CustomersWithOpenOrders. But, it's just a static list, so how do I make the Company Name label clickable, and what else will I need to make it fire back to some code-behind to fetch the child records. I already have a code-behind method to get child records for a passed-in CustomerNumber into a DataTable, and I think I would know how to bind that to a grid or listview for child records, but I do not know how to pass the CustomerNumber from the master ListView to the method from the UI form.

<asp:ListView ID="ListView1" runat="server">
    <LayoutTemplate>
      <table cellpadding="2" border="0" ID="tbl1" runat="server">
        <tr id="Tr1" runat="server" class="lvHeader">
          <th id="Th1" runat="server">Customer</th>
        </tr>
        <tr runat="server" id="itemPlaceholder" />
      </table>
    </LayoutTemplate>
    <ItemTemplate>
      <tr id="Tr2" runat="server">
        <td>
          <asp:Label ID="label2" class="FirstLine" runat="server" Text='<%# Eval("company") %>' />
          <br />
          <div class="SecondLine">
            <asp:Label ID="labelCustNo" runat="server" Text='<%# Eval("custno") %>'/>
            <asp:Label runat="server" Text='Ph: '></asp:Label>
            <asp:Label ID="label3" runat="server" Text='<% # Eval("phone") %>' />
          </div>
        </td>
      </tr>
    </ItemTemplate>
</asp:ListView>

From stackoverflow

• I personally haven't found a case where the ListView can't solve my needs. If you want to create a customer selection style list you can use a link button for binding.

  <asp:ListView runat="server" id="CustomersList" ItemCommand="CustomersList_ItemCommand">
    <LayoutTemplate>
      <table cellpadding="2" border="0" ID="tbl1" runat="server">
        <tr id="Tr1" runat="server" class="lvHeader">
          <th id="Th1" runat="server">Customer</th>
        </tr>
        <tr runat="server" id="itemPlaceholder" />
      </table>
    </LayoutTemplate>
    <ItemTemplate>
      <tr id="Tr2" runat="server">
        <td>
          <asp:LinkButton ID="link1" class="FirstLine" runat="server" Text='<%# Eval("company") %>' CommandName="Select" />
          <br />
          <div class="SecondLine">
            <asp:Label ID="labelCustNo" runat="server" Text='<%# Eval("custno") %>'/>
            <asp:Label runat="server" Text='Ph: '></asp:Label>
            <asp:Label ID="label3" runat="server" Text='<% # Eval("phone") %>' />
          </div>
        </td>
      </tr>
    </ItemTemplate>
  </asp:ListView>
  
  <asp:ListView runat="server" ID="OrderList">
    <!-- Child Rows implementation -->
  </asp:ListView>
  

  Then you would need to bind the event to the ListView.ItemCommand.

  protected void CustomersList_ItemCommand(object sender, ListViewCommandEventArgs e)
  {
    if (e.CommandName = "Select")
    {
      if (e.Item.ItemType != ListViewItemType.DataItem) return;
  
      var dataItem = e.Item as ListViewDataItem;
      if (dataItem == null) return;
  
      var customer = dataItem.DataItem as Customer;
      if (customer == null) return;
  
      this.OrdersList.DataSource = GetChildRecords(customer.ID);
      this.OrdersList.DataBind();
    }
  }
  

  MattSlay : Well, I got it working all the way to the point where you are casting the dataItem.DataItem to a Customer type. I am not using typed DataSets or objects, but rather a plain DataSet from a SQL command call. So, how can I get the CustNo out if I set it using a CommandArgument on the LinkButton?

  bendewey : View it in the debugger. You may have to cast it as a DataRow or a DataViewRow

  MattSlay : It's null in debugger. I finally just used CommandArgument equal to CustId on each LinkButton, then: string SelectedCustomerId = e.CommandArgument.ToString(); this.lvOpenOrders.DataSource = GetOpenOrdersByCustomer(SelectedCustomerId); this.lvOpenOrders.DataBind(); Cheating?