Firstly, we generate random integer values from 0 to 255 for each color channel, red, green and blue:

With random numbers you need to give two values. The range returned is greater than or equal to the first value and less than the second value so (0, 256) gives a range from 0 to 255 inclusive.

Next, we convert these integer values to hexadecimal:

The ToString(“X”) puts the integer into hexadecimal format. The PadLeft(2, “0″c) adds a leading zero before single character hex values, numbers 0-15 so that value 8 becomes 08. Expressing a color hex RGB value shorter than 6 digits may cause problems.

Finally, we put the red, green and blue values together with a hash symbol in a string:

You can then use this string value to generate random colors within your application.

To set the random color for web form controls you can generally use the randomly generated integer values rather than the hex format, like this:

Here’s the SQL to use in your SelectCommand:

You can either bind a control such as a Repeater to the data source or use VB to pull data from the record and use it. Here’s an example of producing a random link in a page. ASP.NET form:

And here’s the VB to grab the data for the single record:

In this example the date of birth data is captured in a TextBox control called txtDateOfBirth. The DateDiff function calculates the difference between two dates. The arguments are the interval to focus on (here months), the first date (here the date of birth) and the second date (here the current date). The date of birth is expressed as DateValue(strDOB) to convert the string to a date format. This is then divided by 12 to give the age in years as a decimal. Finally, the introductory Math.Floor is used to round the number down to the nearest whole number.

In this example we test if the row being bound is a data row, then if the second column (indexed as 1) is equal to 0. If it is then the row’s backcolor is set as PeachPuff and the cell itself has backcolor Salmon. Remember that cell indexing starts at 0 so that the first column is e.Row.Cells(0), the second column e.Row.Cells(1), etc.

To change the text colour simply substitute BackColor with ForeColor.

73 records matched your search or 128 matches found.

This is actually very easy to do but incredibly hard to find an easy way of doing it. Here’s how it’s done.

This example is based on searching a company contact list.

Firstly, in your web form you need your DataSource and SelectCommand, for example:

Then, in your VB you get the number of records returned as follows:

You will need to change srcResults in the third line to the ID of your DataSource control, the rest of the code can stay as it is.

Finally, you need to output the number of records to the page. This can be done by putting a Literal or Label control in the web form:

Here’s some code which gives different output depending on whether there are 0, 1 or more than 1 record counted:

Fieldset is basically used to group different elements in a form. It draws a box around content.

In IE7 by default it renders a box with a thin grey border and rounded corners. In Firefox by default it renders a box with a thin grey border but normal square corners. The corners can easily be rounded for Firefox with a bit of Mozilla specific CSS:

The 10px can be changed to create different amound of curvature. This means you have an area on screen with rounded corners without using any images or JavaScript, just simple HTML and CSS.

There’s another HTML tag which can add a heading to the <fieldset> tag. This is the <legend> tag.

This renders by default as the legend wording sitting within the border top, breaking the border.

This can be a very effective way of heading a section especially with the right styling. This effect of breaking the border and positioning the heading text over it would use a few lines of CSS.

Here is the HTML code:

Example

You can see an example of fieldsets in use on this Corporate Hospitality website. This adds a border and a different colour to the <legend> tag.

It’s very easy to implement. Here’s how it’s done. This example has a delete button in a GridView control.

Instead of using a ButtonField as you might expect we use a TemplateField which allows us to add the OnClientClick property. You can then add your own confirmation message. The data record will only be deleted on confirming by clicking OK. No changes to the data source control are needed.

This sounds like it should be quite easy but it isn’t. You can insert data from a field into a page quite easily by binding the data to a control. However, the ASP.NET controls have to sit with the <form> tags in the <body> of the HTML so binding data to the <head> section is more difficult.

It has to be done programmatically. Here how’s it’s done in VB.

This example uses srcDataSourceControl as the data source control and assumes that the database table has fields called ProductName, ProductNumber and ProductCategory. You can bind as many fields as you like in this way.

The title is set by giving a string value to Page.Header.Title. This can be strings bound with DataView (strProductName) or bits of text in quote marks (” – “) joined by the & sign.

One final important thing. The <head> section in your page HTML must include the runat=”server” to enable the header content to be manipulated on the server side.

To show only current and future events add DateValue([EventDate]) >= DATE() to the WHERE clause of your data source SelectCommand. DateValue grabs the date value of your date field, DATE() returns today’s date.

This can be varied to show dates in the past by changing the operator from “>=” to “<” or past and present “<=”.

Works with ASP.NET 2.0 or higher.

This is actually very simple but you can really get tied up in knots if you don’t get the SQL SelectCommand right.

You can use any of the list controls for this but here I’ve chosen the DataList control.

In this example, the DataList gets its data from the srcCategories AccessDataSource control but you could equally use any of the ASP.NET 2.0+ data source controls. Within the item template the “Category” value is used in the link URL and link text and the “RecordCount” value appears after the link in brackets.

The DataList control renders an HTML table and the RepeatColumns and RepeatDirection attributes just vary the layout of this table.

The AccessDataSource control’s SelectCommand uses DISTINCT [Category] to show each category name only once, then a COUNT of the ID field named as RecordCount for use in the DataList control.

Works with ASP.NET 2.0 or higher.