Form Inside of a User Control - Q817779 And Q817779

Those of you who have been unfortunate to place a server-side form inside a user control probably know that the form seizes to work. Why?

I do this all the time. I'm a big believer in page templates. I think they are a must when developing for the web. Templates are a powerful vehicle for incapsulating a lot of mundane logic and providing a consistent look and feel. Both efficient and pleasing to the eye.

My templates get loaded from a "page base" class and as such they are user controls. What happens is the postback JavaScript references your form incorrectly:

...
  theform = document._ctl0:form1;
...

Any browser throws a JavaScript error. There are two Knowledge Base articles at Microsoft that talk about it:

• FIX: Form Inside of a User Control Generates a Script Error (Q817779)
• INFO: Post-RTM .NET Framework 1.1 ASP.NET Hotfix Package Symptoms (Q818803).

Where there is a bug, there is a fix. Ironically, Microsoft keeps this locked behind seven doors with seven locks of Tech Support. Basically, you're left screwed if you don't have a budget or a subscription. Luckily, I found that InstantASP kindly provided it for download. Kudos to InstantASP!

Once the fix is applied, everything is back to how it's supposed to be:

  theform = document.forms["__aspnetForm"];

I've also devised a hack which is void of this problem in the first place. See Producing XHTML-Compliant Pages With Response Filters.